Does The U.S. Military Actually Protect American Freedom?

Let’s make one thing crystal clear, no member of the US military contributes in any way whatsoever to protecting the freedoms of the American people. As a matter of fact, they are more likely to turn their weapons on you than they are to defend your Constitutional rights.

The only people on this planet Earth who can affect your freedom are members of Congress, local legislators and the members of enforcement institutions who will blindly follow the rulers who sign their paychecks. And, while your beloved troops are murdering people around the globe, yes, I said murdering, your Congress and local legislators are eliminating your freedoms, en masse, without any intervention by our so-called protectors in the armed forces.

There is no honor in volunteering to go anywhere in the world and kill anybody you are told to, without question, without historical background and without verifying the stated reasons for doing so. In this modern age of information we now know that time and time again our military have been deployed into battle, to kill and be killed, for reasons that in no way shape or form resemble the reasons for which they, or we were told at the time. This is no secret, although many Americans refuse to take off the flag that is wrapped around their eyes and see American history as it really happened. They blindly believe what was told to them by the people who have a vested interest in maintaining myths and misconceptions.

What a bias ingrate. “As a matter of fact, they are more likely to turn their weapons on you than they are to defend your Constitutional rights.”

He needs to quit pulling his Appeals to Ignorance and other bullshit fallacies to try and demonize people who, while technically have no ability to defend anyone’s legal freedom on a daily basis like a Federal would, contact four or more years of their life away in what they conceive as the best means of service to their fellow countrymen.

Why is he an editor? Why is this crap permitted to clog the arteries of the Internet? This isn’t news, or even a form of intelligent journalism. This is groundless opinionated insults. THIS is why I can’t find out what’s happening in other parts of the world. Because I have to wade through THIS shit to get anywhere.

Gengnagel

What a bias ingrate. “As a matter of fact, they are more likely to turn their weapons on you than they are to defend your Constitutional rights.”

He needs to quit pulling his Appeals to Ignorance and other bullshit fallacies to try and demonize people who, while technically have no ability to defend anyone’s legal freedom on a daily basis like a Federal would, contact four or more years of their life away in what they conceive as the best means of service to their fellow countrymen.

Why is he an editor? Why is this crap permitted to clog the arteries of the Internet? This isn’t news, or even a form of intelligent journalism. This is groundless opinionated insults. THIS is why I can’t find out what’s happening in other parts of the world. Because I have to wade through THIS shit to get anywhere.

chinagreenelvis

Apparently this one line ruffled your feathers enough to cause you to dismiss some of the almost-totally valid points the author makes further into the article. I would say this is one of the few kinds of pieces that I would expect to read on Disinfo because it raises questions that every citizen of the United States should ask themselves and others.

Phil

Agreed, this disrespectful shit is disgusting. I’m in the Canadian Forces and 90% of what our militarys do is keep the peace. The worst part of this is its days after the largest one day death toll in afghanistan. Maybe our forces arent perfect but without them there would be hell outside our borders.

Brokenstar

I liked the canadian forces. Cool dudes. I met a few.

E.B. Wolf

CANADA…FUCK YEA!!!
Nope. Team Canada World Police just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

WeAreChangeAtlanta

Who creates the Hell? Ever researched False Flag Attacks? Perhaps you are being a bit politically naive? The rich play both sides and collect the spoils. The pawns are our soldiers willing to risk death for the lies of the elite puppet masters. War is a Racket after all. Also we are not responsible for intervening and policing the world. This was not the intention of the founding fathers whatsoever.

Tuna Ghost

Also we are not responsible for intervening and policing the world.

I must disagree here. The US is the only nation capable of doing so, and with great power comes great responsibility blah blah blah. The US does have a responsibility, due to its great power, to protect the peace.

This was not the intention of the founding fathers whatsoever.

Well no, of course not. The founding fathers could never have foreseen that after World War II the US would emerge as the sole remaining superpower in the world. That doesn’t mean anything, though. Just because when, at its inception, the US was a tiny nation dwarfed by powers like Britain and France and a great many others that doesn’t mean we have any real responsibility to adhere to the ideas regarding foreign relations of the men who were in charge at that time. Doing so would pretty silly, don’t you think?

WeAreChangeAtlanta

No I don’t think it is silly. I think they very clearly understood the complexities of military warfare and foreign policy and understood we were best served by tending our own gardens not becoming another empire. But hey maybe being trillions of dollars in debt and being dependent on a war economy while having every right as afforded by the Constitution in eternal jeopardy and bartered for so called “security” is the Orwellian nightmare you would prefer for the US. Also it becomes clear that the US was brought into WW2 just to enable the slide in to Tyranny we are experiencing now. I think you are rather silly and an obvious shill. You who will argue across the spectrum to ignore the evidence of the crimes of September 11th as though they were purely an abstract thought exercise with no price in human life or suffering. We know who you are Tuna.

Tuna Ghost

Oh for god’s sake, do you have some sort of learning disorder? I’m not saying the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan was justified, nor the outrageous spending on “Defense”. I have, numerous times, stated the exact opposite of that. Not that you bother to read or understand the things you’ve read. But military intervention in places like Darfur, in which we could have easily made a difference and saved thousands of lives, are the responsibility of whatever power is capable of saving those lives. The US has a lot of power that can be used for good instead of the mafia-esque racket it is currently running. And US involvement in WWII was only instigated so the US could be the remaining superpower after the war? Are you serious? That shows a complete disregard for history. And leave it to a Truther to drag 9/11 into anything whether its appropriate or not. Oh, and for the record: in the future, if you’re attempting to sound menacing in an online forum–just don’t. It makes you look like a complete ass with absolutely no self-awareness.

Jesus. Next you’re going to accuse me of asking you to read too much or of using too many big words like your cousin up there.

WeAreChangeAtlanta

Whatever Tuna. Everyone knows who you are. State Apologists masquerading as a “Hipster” attempting to ingratiate yourself into an online community while slipping in the subtle sophistry of a sociopath. You don’t give a shit for any real human values, no matter how much spin or verbal make up you apply you still are polishing turds to keep the sheep asleep. If you seriously want a debate lets take off these nice anonymous internet masks and debate either face to face or via Skype. Let the world see who you are, of course we know you can’t possibly reveal your true identity in a debate because then everyone would realize who the pathetic mouse behind the keyboard is. Every drop of blood spilt for the lies of 9/11 You Enable. Just think about that before you pen another lie. And don’t think you can talk your way out of absolutes. The laws of physics don’t bend even for pretentious propagandists like yourself. You’ve been called out AGAIN. Let’s see what your made of. You can talk whatever shit you like but at the end of the day you ALWAYS, repeat ALWAYS back down when it comes time to show yourself. You spend countless hours debating manufactured red herring minutiae avoiding all accountability to reason. Why are you so afraid of being revealed? It’s too difficult to maintain an illusion when people can see right through your projected apparition is why.

Tuna Ghost

Whatever Tuna.
Wow. You can just dismiss all the ways you are incorrect with two words. That’s…pretty impressive, guy.

State Apologists masquerading as a “Hipster” attempting to ingratiate yourself into an online community while slipping in the subtle sophistry of a sociopath.

Since that sounds far more exciting than my actual life, I’m going to just go with this. Tell me, am I working alone or am I part of some cabal? Do I receive wages or am I doing this pro bono? Can’t I be a hipster and a shill infiltrating Disinfo (because its so important the government must have people trying to get on the inside) working for the government? Do I spend all my time hunting down and discrediting the tiny minority that make up the 9/11 Truth movement, or do I have a day job? And, in case no one has brought this idea to your attention, are you entirely sure that you’re not just a guy on the internet who desperately needed some excitement in his life and who, having stopped arguing the facts of the matter because the many questions you can’t answer, has now constructed an elaborate fantasy that positions yourself as fighting for truth and justice against shadowy government agents and is now demanding the personal information of people who disagree with you?

Oooh! Since you’re demanding my personal information, does that make you my stalker? That’s sort of a mark of distinction here. Can I tell people you’re my stalker? I’m going to tell people you’re my stalker.

WeAreChangAtlanta

Your own paranoid projections aside. I know you are a liar. The rest is like so much of the other shit you spew on this site, irrelevant. I know you are a coward because as you present your tripe you refuse to man up or stand up to anything you say, hiding behind the anonymity of your screen name. You have been stalking 9/11 Truth posts for sometime. Anyone paying attention can see this. Why you are so hard up to do so is anyone’s guess. You’re OBVIOUS red herrings aside, the challenge still stands and you still won’t put up.

Tuna Ghost

There’s a word for men who attempt to get personal information and interaction from the people on the internet. You tell me I’m responsible for the blood spilt since 9/11 and you want a more personal interaction? Yeah, no thanks. That doesn’t sound terribly safe, and I’m already more involved in your pathetic fantasies than I’m comfortable with.

WeAreChangAtlanta

“Every drop of blood spilt for the lies of 9/11 You Enable. Just think about that before you pen another lie” This is what I said. Why are you so incapable of accurately portraying information? Also I would be happy to present my name in any debate. I’m not afraid to stand behind my words. You’re involved in pathetic fantasies alright, they spew out of your mouth like a broken sewer line everytime you post here. Stop Jocking my Posts shill.

WeAreChangAtlanta

http://www.federaljack.com/?p=96679 JOINT BASE LEWIS MCCHORD, Wash. – A soldier’s widow says his fellow Army Rangers wouldn’t do anything to help him before he took his own life – after eight deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Read this Tuna. Another casualty for the BULLSHIT WAR ON TERROR. This is what you enable with your lies.

Tuna Ghost

If one enables something, then one shares the responsibility for that something. If you say I enabled every drop of blood spilt, then I am, at the very least, partly responsible. That follows from what the words “enable” and “responsibility” mean. Why are you even arguing this? The definition of those words lead to that conclusion. Check the dictionary, guy. Its ridiculous to claim otherwise.

My words stand on their own. They are not even technically my opinions. These are the opinions of the vast majority of the scientific community, as you well know. I could be a houseplant whose leaves happened to fall on a keyboard in a statistically improbable order and they would still accurately represent the opinions of the scientific community. Address the argument, not the person making it. Claiming I’m wrong because I’m a shill a perfect example of ad hominem. Look it up. If I call you an idiot, that is not an example of ad hominem. If I say you’re an idiot who is completely wrong and making fantasies, that is not an example of ad hominem either. If I say you’re wrong because you’re an idiot who makes fantasies, THAT would be an example of ad hominem. But I’ve never said that. It’s not because you’re an idiot that you’re wrong. You’re wrong because the claims you’ve made are not factual.

I have no idea what “jocking” means. I can only assume it means “commenting on my posts and pointing out the factual errors I’ve made.” If you don’t like people calling you out on your mistakes, the door is over there. There are plenty of places you can go where no one will bother you when you’re spreading bullshit around. Disinfo is not one of those places. I like Disinfo, and you and your ilk are bringing down the quality of debate around here. In an effort to demonstrate that this is not a place where bullshit isn’t challenged, I will continue to point out your mistakes. If you don’t like that, well, no one is putting a gun to your head and making you post here.

Although, if you leave, I won’t be able to join the “I have a stalker” club. Hmm. Dilemma.

WeAreChangeAtlanta

I’ve noticed a pattern. Whatever someone points out about your illogical processes and fallacious arguments, you immediately attempt to accuse them of your own ignorant ploys, wanting the high ground or onus to be on them rather than yourself. It’s a convenient means for an anonymous shill to attempt to avoid being called out and you employ it tirelessly.

Explain to me how a 47 story tall building (not hit by a plane) manages to dismember itself and 400 welded steel connections per second simultaneously and globally across the entire facade of the structure, from small asymmetrical fires as NIST would have us believe?

There is no scientific majority opposed to the Peer reviewed and forensic evidence available that you are invoking, provide a source for this illogical claim (Science is NOT majority rule after all, I’ve already explained this to you Tuna so this is why I have no qualms with labeling you a shill)

NIST states that “differential thermal expansion occurred between the steel floor beams and concrete slab when the composite floor was subjected to fire.” The composite floor is the steel beams made composite with the floor slab by means of the shear studs. They claim that the differential thermal expansion caused the steel to expand and move over the concrete until the shear studs broke. Even though NIST itself acknowledges, and I again quote from the official report, “steel and concrete have similar coefficients of thermal expansion.”

To prove their point, they fed their variables into their computer model to demonstrate how WTC 7 would have reacted to its fires. So, what did NIST feed into its computer that caused it to say that the steel would have expanded so much more than the concrete slab that the 2′-0″ o.c., 3/4″ shear studs began failing at ~300 F?
NIST said (ie admitted) that it told the computer that the steel beams had been heated; but the concrete floor slab had not. To again quote NIST, “No thermal expansion or material degradation was considered for the concrete slab, as the slab was not heated in this analysis.”

I am not arguing that the official report is false. Quite the contrary. I am in fact quoting it. But in the official story NIST admits, or at least states, that they fudged the data to support their story.

@Bethechangeatlanta I think 911 Truthers would benefit much more from the services of a therapist than the disinformation website. Science and logic, you don’t even comprehend what those words mean …

Tuna Ghost

Whatever someone points out about your illogical processes and fallacious arguments, you immediately attempt to accuse them of your own ignorant ploys, wanting the high ground or onus to be on them rather than yourself.

I’d ask for examples, but there’s no telling what you think that sentence even means. If your recent posts are any example, you really don’t have a solid grasp of semantics.

Where are you seeing the faults? Where does ANYONE see the faults? See, here’s what happens: people like you say “explain WTC7!” And then I provide an explanation, and then you ignore it. Then I ask about how the explosions didn’t make the noise that an explosion that powerful should have made, and you ignore that too. There’s an entire comments section of this very thing happening over and over. Until you answer that question, the discussion cannot move forward. But you don’t care about that, do you? No Truther on Disinfo, not a single one, has answered that question. Why didn’t people two blocks away hear it? Tell me, buddy. An explosion that powerful would have been heard ten blocks away. But it wasn’t. Why is that? Why has literally every single Truther on Disinfo avoided answering that question when I ask it? Why, friend? Why don’t you answer it?

WeAreChangeAtlanta

It’s already been answered countless times. You just pretend it hasn’t. Here is a nice little video for you, you can see Structural Engineers, Chemists, Metallurgists, Architects, Veterans, etc explain why we need an immediate, independent and new investigation for the unsolved crimes of 9/11. http://ae911truth.org/en/news-section/41-articles/546-remember-building-7-10th-anniversary-ad-campaign-launches-today-.html

“Then I ask about how the explosions didn’t make the noise that an explosion that powerful should have made, and you ignore that too.”

This is your best evidence? Really? And you expect anyone to take you seriously? No wonder you are so neurotically insecure that you feel the need to hurl insults on an online forum.

So you are saying there were no loud explosions associated with building 7 or the towers implosion? Ok here we go again, here watch this video, it’s just one example of the LOUD EXPLOSIONS documented on video and in eye witness reports.

But you just keep telling yourself that it doesn’t exist. By the way you’ve not explained anything, just like NIST. You are just presuming that these implosions have to match your illogical criteria or that they could not have been implosions. Just watch the video, it’s really not that difficult. For anyone watching at home, when you see Building 7 side by side collapsing at free fall velocities into the path of greatest resistance along side the acknowledged controlled demolition examples. Just remember Tuna would have you question your eyes rather than challenge the edicts of state. A child can see clearly what a rotting fish carcass cannot.

So you are saying there were no loud explosions associated with building 7 or the towers implosion?

No. Read carefully: Explosions from controlled demolitions can be heard from quite a long distance away. Had explosives been used, regardless of the kind of explosives and regardless of whether or not thermite was used, people ten blocks away would have heard them. They would have been recorded on any of the numerous surveillance equipment and other recording devices in operation around the Towers. But they weren’t. And nobody who wasn’t in the immediate vicinity of the Towers heard the loud booms. And if the people who did report hearing loud booms really were that close to an explosive device powerful enough to knock down a building, they would have been literally deafened by it. No matter how you try to spin it, powerful explosion = deafening noise.

This is what no Truthers address. A handful of people reporting loud booms is not evidence of explosions. Those noises were not captured on any of the recording devices present and operating at the time, despite the fact that explosions powerful enough to knock down a building can be heard a mile away. This is what you, and every single other Truther here, ignores. Give it a try, buddy. Explain that to me. Explain to me how an explosion didn’t make the sound an explosion should. Tell me how it didn’t deafen the people standing right next to the building. Tell me why no recording equipment captured the noise. Tell me why people two blocks away didn’t hear it. Do what literally no Truther has done so far. The discussion literally cannot move forward if you do not.

Tuna Ghost

Look guy, you can call me all the names you want, just answer the goddam question. The actual question I elaborated upon in my other post. When I say “literally no other Truther addressed this”, that is a factual statement. In the other comment section, with 200+ comments by Truthers, no one addressed this. You can see for yourself. It’s all there, literally in black and white.

There is no scientific majority opposed to the Peer reviewed and forensic evidence available that you are invoking, provide a source for this illogical claim
I don’t understand this sentence. What “peer reviewed and forensic evidence” am I invoking?

There is a majority consensus on what occurred on 9/11. Pretending otherwise is ignoring reality. The Popular Mechanics article was an example. Why wasn’t it retracted? Why wasn’t there an uproar if it wasn’t scientifically soudn? Why weren’t there papers published in any scientific journal attempting to discredit it?

The only “peer reviewed” article given to the scientific community, the article Truthers like to claim that proves there was nano-thermite found in the debris of the towers (even though the article itself makes no such claims at all, making me wonder if they’ve actually read the damn thing) was discredited immediately and the editor resigned in disgrace for allowing it to be published in a scientific journal. To my knowledge, that was the only article presented to the scientific community, as opposed to the numerous videos released on YouTube for people like you. Why is that? Why aren’t there others? If Gage really has 800 engineers (the actual number is nothing close, of course), why haven’t more papers been submitted? Why haven’t they started their own investigation? Or are you going to say that the rest of the scientific community is part of the conspiracy?

Tuna Ghost

I can’t speak to Canada’s military, which I’ve always viewed as a pretty unimportant on the global scale, but the US military is not and has not been interested in protecting the “freedom” of its citizens. That hasn’t been necessary since the end of WWII, so I don’t say this as a criticism. Protecting the constitutional freedoms was never really its job in the first place, so I don’t really see how that would be a criticism anyway.

But. But but but. In the last 50 or so years, the military actions it has engaged in have been, every single one, more about making sure America’s military and, ultimately, financial interests are being served by foreign countries. This has enabled US citizens to enjoy the freedom to buy SUVs and the like, to enjoy cultural supremacy on a level so far unheard of in world history.

Maybe our forces arent perfect but without them there would be hell outside our borders.

Like I said, I can’t claim to have much knowledge about Canada’s military, but the US military does not hold “keeping the peace” to be of much importance compared to its military and financial interests. In fact, its quite the opposite: in the last 50 years the US has disrupted the peace on several occasions in several countries in order to expand its influence, or to make sure various countries have the “proper” government, i.e. a government that knows whose interests are to be served first and foremost. This has been demonstrated time and time again, most recently in Iraq. I don’t include Afghanistan, since I would shed no tears at all if the Taliban were completely destroyed, and Afghanistan is the armpit of the world anyway so its pretty difficult to make it any worse. Even so, the examples of the US disrupting the peace to serve its own interests are all over the place. Surely you don’t deny this?

Pat Tillman’s Ghost

So when any serviceman swears to protect the oath against enemies foreign and domestic, to you that doesn’t entail protecting constitutional freedoms as laid out explicitly in the constitution, which they are swearing to defend against enemies foreign or domestic? What exactly would they be swearing to protect then in your mind? Do you have any evidence to back up such historical revisionism?

Conflating the current or recent behavior with the intention of the founding fathers and the sworn oaths to enter into military service is another logical fallacy (Composition).

So what would you say was the original intention of the founding fathers in regards to military service and their sworn oaths. What evidence do you have to derive such fantasy that “protecting the constitutional freedoms was never really its job in the first place”

Pat Tillman’s Ghost

The Oath of Enlistment (for enlistees):

“I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

The Oath of Office (for officers):

“I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God.”

Tuna Ghost

Huh! Well, never let it be said I’m unable to admit when I’m wrong. Having seen no evidence of servicemen protecting my constitutional rights, I assumed (incorrectly) that was never their job. I must say, however, that it seems they are being used for other purposes than protecting my constitutional rights, which seems shameful.

nevertrusta3sum

I think the reason you have trouble finding out what’s happening in other parts of the world has nothing to do with the fact that this article is written, or the fact that people are allowed to spew any kind of vile information on the internetz.. what ever they may be. You can choose to view the content you desire. It’s not like TV were the information comes through, and you have no real choice in options and have no input back into the system.

Your problems seems to be that you don’t know how to search for information you are looking for. Try using scrapers. Use Reddit or Digg as a base for world information. I prefer to use this site to sift through mass information as fast as possible. http://www.jimmyr.com/ ….

IMO The tool usually isn’t the problem. It’s either the tools who created it or the tool trying to use it. That is the problem.

DeepCough

You missed the point: the point is that militarism is being equated with the policies of a “free country” when in fact the freedoms are being slowly eroded away to perpetuate the military industrial complex.

chinagreenelvis

Apparently this one line ruffled your feathers enough to cause you to dismiss some of the almost-totally valid points the author makes further into the article. I would say this is one of the few kinds of pieces that I would expect to read on Disinfo because it raises questions that every citizen of the United States should ask themselves and others.

Hadrian999

he has valid points but no understanding of honor, the hero worship many people have of soldiers is irritating but impugning the honor of warriors because he doesn’t like them is the act of vermin

Hadrian999

he has valid points but no understanding of honor, the hero worship many people have of soldiers is irritating but impugning the honor of warriors because he doesn’t like them is the act of vermin

DeepCough

Honor went out with chivalry, dude. There is no honor in war when war is Hell.

Hadrian999

for some people

Brokenstar

The hell there isn’t. I didn’t arrest NCOs and soliders for being corrupt for the hell of it. The military has a complicated evolving DISCIPLINE based justice system that does everything it can to eliminate murderers and sociopaths. The military is not like the movie platoon…

DeepCough

Yeah, here was Gen. George S Patton’s idea of honor:

“You idiot, you’re not supposed to die for your country, you’re supposed to get the other guy to die for his!”

Hadrian999

what does that have to do with what you are responding to

DeepCough

The most fun about reading–is reading between the lines!

Hadrian999

your statement had no bearing on honor or the ucmj, i guess reading between imaginary lines is fun for you

DeepCough

You must be one of those people that gets a real hard-on when you watch the “Rambo” movies, huh?

Tuna Ghost

again, what on earth does that have to do with anything? Even if Hadrian does get sexually stimulated watching Sly Stone kill minorities, how in the seven hells does that have anything to do with what anyone wrote???

DeepCough

“There is no honor in volunteering to go anywhere in the world and kill
anybody you are told to, without question, without historical background
and without verifying the stated reasons for doing so.”

There, that relevant enough for you, Tuna Ghost?

Tuna Ghost

Finally. Although one would think the “honor” comes from answering the call to serve one’s country, rather than the actual firing of a gun at someone who is firing a gun at you.

Pinkelephantcollective

Tuna you are the last person that should be pointing out ‘logical fallacies’. Be sure to check the swiss cheesed steel girder in your own eye before you point out the nano thermitic residue in your brothers.

Also I think Deep Cough nailed it with his Rambo joke.

Tuna Ghost

Hey pal I was a philosophy major, when I say “logical fallacy” I mean the damn logical fallacy with its latin name and all that jazz. That’s not a word I throw around lightly.

…except for Argumentum Verbosium, because it sounds like a spell from Harry Potter. I yell that out loud every chance I get. And when I’m working on proofs, I use Reductio ad absurdum every chance I can because its my favorite argument…and because it sounds like a Harry Potter spell.

Nano_Thermite_911

All hail the philosophy major who feels the need to throw big words around in their latin form. The problem is you obviously use your awareness for obfuscation. Let me guess you studied at Slytherin and your minor was in sophistry. I’m not your pal Tuna.

Tuna Ghost

So far, buddy, pal, friend, compadre, amigo, tomodachi, chingu, your primary and repeated criticisms of me have been that I ask that you to read too much and that I use too many big words and confuse you. I mean, jesus, really? How is that not pathetic? Maybe you ought to stop blaming other people for your reading problems and investigate why no one else makes these sort of complaints about anyone else. Seriously, you want to discuss and debate but we can’t make you read a lot and we can’t use big words? Do you not see a problem here? Why don’t you just stick to YouTube which is obviously more your speed? You’re not going to find long paragraphs or hard words there so you’re not going to have to ask your opponents to dumb down their arguments.

DeepCough

For the record, there are Nine Circles of Hell.

Hadrian999

been away, no I don’t get aroused by rambo, though i will admit to enjoying the first and last. honor isn’t found in causes good or bad, nor strictly in military service, it is found in conduct and integrity and being true to your word even when it has a terrible cost to yourself, discussing honor with the general populace and especially post modern hipsters who have never done a hard thing in their life is pointless but keep making oh so knowing pop culture references and sipping your trendy drink of choice if it makes you happy, good luck and I hope some day you have the opportunity to find out who you really are.

DeepCough

You call me a hipster? Now who’s resorting to ad hoc stereotypes, bitch? Maybe if you didn’t allow yourself to be taken in by the slick ad campaign of the Department of “Defense,” you’d see what the military is actually being used for: to wage hostile takeovers of other nations to garner profits for greedy corporations like Halliburton.

Tuna Ghost

rrrrrrright. In other words, “I can’t prove that what I wrote isn’t completely irrelevant and not at all on topic, but I don’t want to admit that I wasted everyone’s time”

Bethechangeatlanta

Check my above comment. Perhaps you should re familiarize yourself with the concept of projection. Tuna you waste incalculable man hours with your constant red herring offensives on so many posts throughout the interwebs. People in glass houses…

Tuna Ghost

yeah, that wasn’t a reply to anything you wrote. Look again, buddy.

Redacted

I dig it lol

Tuna Ghost

That…has no bearing at all on the points made.

Redacted

You dispose of Honor as only a man with none can.

Patt Tillman’s Ghost

Warriors who simply follow orders are demoted to soldiers in my mind.
A mercenary and a warrior are different things. Pat Tillman was a Warrior sacrificed on the altar of propaganda. Those who see through the lies and speak out regardless of whether they are enlisted or a civilian are the true warriors. The remainder still drawing fiat federal reserve notes as a pay off to fall in line and not question their master. The sooner the soldier understands this is the sooner he regains the honor and sovereignty of a true Warrior.

Will

@ Gengnagel;You can’t handle the truth.

Will

@ Gengnagel;You can’t handle the truth.

Nunzio X

I’ll concentrate on one point: that the military doesn’t defend / protect US freedoms.

It’s not that they CAN’T do so, it’s that they DON’T.

When I hear this “they’re fighting for our freedom” bullshit, I always ask the shit-spouter to explain in even rough detail how my freedom or his freedom was EVER threatened by ANY enemy the US has waged war against—and.they.can’t.do.it.

What, was Saddam going to jump in a boat with an army of thugs and cross the ocean and invade us and then kill all our “leaders” and institute Saddam-esque horrors upon the land? Were the North Vietnamese going to do it? Were the North Koreans before them going to do it? C’mon—-don’t try to feed me that bullshit.

Our freedom is threatened more by our “leaders” and their lackeys than it ever was from our “enemies.”

Nunzio X

I’ll concentrate on one point: that the military doesn’t defend / protect US freedoms.

It’s not that they CAN’T do so, it’s that they DON’T.

When I hear this “they’re fighting for our freedom” bullshit, I always ask the shit-spouter to explain in even rough detail how my freedom or his freedom was EVER threatened by ANY enemy the US has waged war against—and.they.can’t.do.it.

What, was Saddam going to jump in a boat with an army of thugs and cross the ocean and invade us and then kill all our “leaders” and institute Saddam-esque horrors upon the land? Were the North Vietnamese going to do it? Were the North Koreans before them going to do it? C’mon—-don’t try to feed me that bullshit.

Our freedom is threatened more by our “leaders” and their lackeys than it ever was from our “enemies.”

http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

Dammit…you pretty much nailed it and co-opted my points.

I’m from a military family and I love a lot of people in the service…especially since I know they believe in what they’re doing and their motivations come from a good place…

…but the fuck-asses that write their marching orders come from hell and don’t give a shit if the guns are pointed at babies or bombers…they only care about using up munition stocks and the next round of contracts to resupply with even better stuff that goes BOOM (in exchange for a little kickback).

At the end of the day, no one soldier has ever done as much harm as the stroke of a politicians pen. Soldiers may be ordered to kill for the wrong reasons…and they carry the weight of that personally for the rest of their lives…but petty bureaucrats have destroyed the lives of millions with a signature…so if I wrote a rant…all my venom would be aimed at the hands that wield the sword…not at the sword.

http://www.disinfo.com Disinformation

Vox, I think that would be a useful rant …

Nunzio X

VoxMagi, I also come from a military family—my father put in 30, and his father put in more than 20 (not sure of the exact number of years in his case.)

Military people by and large are good people. The US just can’t afford as many of them as we currently support, nor can we pay for all their benefits forever into the future.

Your POV is right on. The soldiers do the shitty job the politicans send them on.

If I was writing the rules, I’d say: the President can only commit troops to any action for a period no more than 30 days. After that, Congress must vote, by a 65% YES margin, to continue the action and each member of Congress who voted YES must IMMEDIATELY volunteer as a support person, or send a family member in his stead, to a FRONT-LINE COMBAT UNIT. They can wrap bandages or carry water or do whatever the fuck, but they MUST be in harm’s way, not filing papers in Honolulu.

“Oh, wait, Mr. Senator—-you don’t want to go? You don’t want to send your kid in your place? Then FUCK YOU—you have no business voting YES and sending other peoples’ kids off to die. Put your money where your mouth is or shut the fuck up. If it’s important enough to risk other people’s kids, it’s important enough to risk YOUR kids.”

I now await your heated responses.

Redacted

Fuck them. They vote yes, they can go themselves.

http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

Hell yes…90% of our military-related problems would be solved if the people picking the fights had more at stake than a few investments. I’ve noticed that its a universal human condition to feel a lot braver about where to send troops when you won’t have to go with them or personally bury any of them. I put a much higher value on the life of servicepeople than 99% of the pseudo-patriotic asswipes out there…because I don’t believe in squandering the lives of our people over a few miles of dirt unless we’re forced into it by serious necessity.

Tuna Ghost

I’ll ask you what I asked the other guy–surely impartial judgement is better than otherwise? How could the leaders be impartial if all of them had a loved one involved in the fighting?

http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

Actually…I can answer that. Impartiality is only achieved when there is equality on the cost benefit side of the analysis. So for a person to have a vested stake in the outcome of conflict…it should be both personal risk of loss AND gain. Then they become impartial. As it stands…no impartiality exists, because there is no personal risk and enormous personal gain via investments…and so the decision making process becomes skewed in favor of approving conflict easily. The other alternative would be to eliminate the right to any financial gain from a conflict for those who make the decisions…suddenly the appetite for war has less appeal when, even though they aren’t at personal risk, they stand to gain nothing. As it stands…we presently have the most skewed of all scenarios, the least impartial of all.

Tuna Ghost

Regardless of whatever we have now, ensuring that the people in charge have a huge personal connection to the events their supposed to be in charge of is a huge mistake. That’s why judges are forced to recuse themselves from cases in which they have a personal connection to anyone involved.

http://www.sacredgeometryinternational.com/ Camron Wiltshire

I agree. Well said Vox

Tuna Ghost

Surely though, we need whoever’s in charge to not have too much personal investment in things like that? Impartial judgement is important in these cases, and that can’t happen if everyone in charge has a loved one that will have to fight. Wouldn’t you say that impartial judgement is best?

Nils

I would like to see valid proof that impartial judgement is necessarily better than judgement by involvement.
Sure, I am not going to be “affected” in my decision-making by the deaths of thousands of people, but is this really “better”? This I’d like to see ‘proven’. You can easier cause the deaths of people in remote areas if you’re not involved, to this I agree, but is this in any way “better”? Idontthinkso.
What makes you believe that politicians – especially when driven by business interests of arms manufacturers, or other corporations who have vested geostrategic interests – are impartial? Assuming that Washington and also European capitals were no centers for lobbying activity would be a little naive I think.
Impartial they are rarely, now the question is do we want them being “affected” (driven) by the observing the value of human lives or by corporations?

Tuna Ghost

I would like to see valid proof that impartial judgement is necessarily better than judgement by involvement.

What, seriously? Centuries of legal precedent don’t do it for you? That’s why judges are forced to recuse themselves if they have a personal connection to anyone involved in a case, because its difficult to the point of impossible to remain impartial, and impartial judgement is and has been considered the fairest for as long as there has been courts. I…I don’t understand how you can’t see that.

tooCents

Right on. I’ve had the idea that anybody that supports one of “our” wars should go fight it or work in a support role. Congress members would say they must run the gov. But the idea of taking ownership of what you support is ethically right the fuck on. A lot of right-wingers talk the big talk. They Love to talk. They love their talk radio and shit talkin’ and letting everybody know how patriotic they are. Cool, send them to Afghanistan.

quartz99

I agree provided you say this referring to “after WW2″, because up to that point, our military really was (usually) deployed to protect either our own or our close allies’ countries. Go ask Hawai’i how our freedom was threatened by Japan, I think you’ll find several eloquent replies to your question.

I would also say that since WW2 they’ve only ever been sent out to protect our government’s interests. That’s not at all the same thing as “protecting our freedom” (and actually means actively working against true freedom in some of the places they’ve been sent), but it’s not _always_ a worthless endeavor either. Sometimes getting involved is the right thing to do. Not always. Definitely not all the times they’ve been used. But sometimes.

Phil

No you idiot they are going to kill their own civilians and fund terrorism groups who kill us. Have you ever served in any military? You have no clue how the world works. And as for the nations you listed north korea has the capability to wipe us cities off the map from across the earth. Think before you spew this shit.

Andrew

North Korea does not have the capability to wipe US cities off the map.

Tuna Ghost

Agreed. I’m not sure why people in the US see N Korea as a threat. Really, they’re a much much bigger threat to their own population. Not even South Korea is afraid of North Korea. When N Korea acts up, like it did a couple times last year, S Korean servicemen are more annoyed than afraid because guard shifts are extended and leaves are canceled.

Nunzio X

I doubt it, but even if what you’re saying is true, how is killing us “taking our freedom?”

“Freedom” is different from “life.” And when someone says the troops are “fighting for our freedom,” that’s not the same thing as saying “they’re protecting our lives.”

If the US hadn’t panicked in the wake of 9-11 and instituted the “Patriot” Act, we’d be just as free today as we were on 9-10. Bascially, Woody Allen got lucky and managed to punch Mike Tyson in the nose and draw a little blood, then Tyson went apeshit with fear and started throwing money everywhere and jumping into the audience to beat the shit out of innocent spectators by way of response to his bloody nose. And he kept behaving this way for TEN YEARS afterward.

Whatever freedom we’re losing, we’re losing it at the hands of our own government. The troops prevent that HOW, exactly?

Guest

truth is, we were never “free” before 9/11 either.. the patriot act just made things worse.. we aren’t the most open-minded, liberal country in the world, that’s for sure.. it’s more than just 9/11.. the criminals who run this country were still around way before then.. but i understand the point you made.

Tuna Ghost

we aren’t the most open-minded, liberal country in the world, that’s for sure…

I’m not about to suggest we’re as free as the general populace likes to believe, but if we’re supposed to understand “open-minded, liberal” to essentially mean “freedom” (which your post seems to do), I’m curious as to what country you see as more “free” than the US. The United States still has a remarkable level of freedooms available to its citizens when compared to the rest of the world. Which countries do you see surpassing us in that regard?

Nano_Thermite_911

We created AlQueda excuse me, AL CIA DUH.

Tuna Ghost

…north korea has the capability to wipe us cities off the map from across the earth.
That hasn’t been proven (in fact its very unlikely given that the US has a defense system in place to handle the shit-grade weapons N Korea has, not to mention the fact that there are several US bases near Pyongyang trained to respond to this exact scenario), and besides since the war the US has not performed any military intervention in North Korea. I think they should, mind you, but not because N Korea is any real threat to the US or S Korea. The US should intervene because N Korea regularly violates the human rights of its own citizens and allows them to starve to death. In 2005 over a million N Korean citizens died from starvation, an atrocity that could have been prevented if the US had just gone in there and taken out the political leaders. That’s a country that needs to be torn down and rebuilt, not Iraq or Afghanistan.

So yeah. Do some research before you post.

(edited for grammatical errors)

http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

Dammit…you pretty much nailed it and co-opted my points.

I’m from a military family and I love a lot of people in the service…especially since I know they believe in what they’re doing and their motivations come from a good place…

…but the fuck-asses that write their marching orders come from hell and don’t give a shit if the guns are pointed at babies or bombers…they only care about using up munition stocks and the next round of contracts to resupply with even better stuff that goes BOOM (in exchange for a little kickback).

At the end of the day, no one soldier has ever done as much harm as the stroke of a politicians pen. Soldiers may be ordered to kill for the wrong reasons…and they carry the weight of that personally for the rest of their lives…but petty bureaucrats have destroyed the lives of millions with a signature…so if I wrote a rant…all my venom would be aimed at the hands that wield the sword…not at the sword.

http://disinfo.com Disinformation

Vox, I think that would be a useful rant …

http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

Homelanders have been conditioned to salivate at the sound of newspeak words about the military. In the Osama Bin Killed legend, the executioner utters the prayer “for god and cuntry” just before he pulls the trigger. Norman Rockwell kitsch as psyop.

The military is a dictatorship. How can a dictatorship preserve freedom? Soldiers do not vote for their leaders. Orders must be obeyed without question. Soldiers have no right to object to orders or policy. Soldiers can be executed for disobeying orders. If soldiers blow the whistle on maleficence they will be jailed in harsh conditions.

There is no freedom to be found in a dictatorship, even a “democratic” one.

BuzzCoastin

Homelanders have been conditioned to salivate at the sound of newspeak words about the military. In the Osama Bin Killed legend, the executioner utters the prayer “for god and cuntry” just before he pulls the trigger. Norman Rockwell kitsch as psyop.

The military is a dictatorship. How can a dictatorship preserve freedom? Soldiers do not vote for their leaders. Orders must be obeyed without question. Soldiers have no right to object to orders or policy. Soldiers can be executed for disobeying orders. If soldiers blow the whistle on maleficence they will be jailed in harsh conditions.

There is no freedom to be found in a dictatorship, even a “democratic” one.

Andrew

He’s disagreed with me.

Redacted

You mad?

Tuna Ghost

A hangul name? Really? Where do you see evidence of this?

Jin The Ninja

in his imagination apparently;)

Jin The Ninja

LOL! didn’t even have balls enough to say to my face?

My name isn’t hangul although i know there are different HANJA associated with the korean name of the same pronunciation.

And the pronunciation for the Kanji in japanese is “Jin” which i prefer.

Interestingly enough “Jin” (jin4 in pinyin) in mandarin which is the character for “golden” or “gilded” is a direct translation of my western middle name from latin.

Hanzi, or chinese characters, form the basis for both hanja and kanji, as a native mandarin speaker, i like the word play of intermixing characters. Makes it interesting.

http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

Well done…so the list of languages wasn’t mere braggadocio…you are a polyglot linguist.

I copped out after studying latin a little and making note of similarities in Western/European language. I am fluent in nothing save English…but with time and effort I can make sense of a lot as long as its Romance language based.

Do have a friend who is a true polygot…fluent in English, Russian, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, German, Italian and a whole string of Latin American native dialects. She’s teaching at a university in Mexico now…archaeology and anthropology (especially with regard to evolution of language.) I find it fascinating…but too demanding to keep my interest peaked.

Jin The Ninja

Well it was a bit of braggadocio or “persona”- but i AM fluent in mando, english, french, bahasa, and german. Passing knowledge of latin, canto, and spanish;)

being mixed/hapa has it’s …advantages…

Anonymous

Hey, it was a paycheck.

Redacted

Hey, it was a paycheck.

Curumim

I aways, after observing the american culture, i find that is more based in “self-denial” than anything else. It’s more easy to lie to themselves like using excuses that is for humanitarian purposes attack other countries (or any other disturbing actions) than to face the facts that USA is a broken country, imperialistic, greedy and plain fanatical. It’s more easy to lie than to admit it’s own mistakes. USA have more in common to Charlie Sheen than you might expect, after all USA is the country that is aways WINNING!! Its the country that still is see itself as AAA!!

Curumim

I aways, after observing the american culture, i find that is more based in “self-denial” than anything else. It’s more easy to lie to themselves like using excuses that is for humanitarian purposes attack other countries (or any other disturbing actions) than to face the facts that USA is a broken country, imperialistic, greedy and plain fanatical. It’s more easy to lie than to admit it’s own mistakes. USA have more in common to Charlie Sheen than you might expect, after all USA is the country that is aways WINNING!! Its the country that still is see itself as AAA!!

DeepCough

I know it’s been said, but I’ll say it my own way: under no circumstance does the military “protect freedom,” just as the police cannot “protect and serve” everybody: the military is used to enforce order, and that order can be just about anything whether it’s Constitutional or not, and I could make a long list demonstrating both, but suffice it to say that it’s not foreigners who are attacking, limiting, and rescinding the rights and liberties guaranteed by the national charter, it’s the incumbent officials and the people who support them. And anyone who tries to tell me that the military is what gave us “Freedom” in the American Revolution is promptly full of shit, especially when the United States technically did not officially EXIST until 1789!

DeepCough

I know it’s been said, but I’ll say it my own way: under no circumstance does the military “protect freedom,” just as the police cannot “protect and serve” everybody: the military is used to enforce order, and that order can be just about anything whether it’s Constitutional or not, and I could make a long list demonstrating both, but suffice it to say that it’s not foreigners who are attacking, limiting, and rescinding the rights and liberties guaranteed by the national charter, it’s the incumbent officials and the people who support them. And anyone who tries to tell me that the military is what gave us “Freedom” in the American Revolution is promptly full of shit, especially when the United States technically did not officially EXIST until 1789!

Phil

This is a disgusting post. Lots of people do fight for freedoms and die for it too. People dont join the military for fun. People dont put their lives on the line for fun. 90% of what any military does is peacekeeping so you need to shut the fuck up unless you have spent time in the armed forces. You have the right to free speech and to say whatever you like through the veil of the internet and everyone who is or ever has been an armed forces member in any modern country has the right to break your fucking jaw. Tell me how much time you have spent in a warzone and seen a race take advantage of their own kind and you know if we can intervene and help, we damn well better. If your ok with mass genocides that other races commit against women or children you’re a sick person.

Phil

This is a disgusting post. Lots of people do fight for freedoms and die for it too. People dont join the military for fun. People dont put their lives on the line for fun. 90% of what any military does is peacekeeping so you need to shut the fuck up unless you have spent time in the armed forces. You have the right to free speech and to say whatever you like through the veil of the internet and everyone who is or ever has been an armed forces member in any modern country has the right to break your fucking jaw. Tell me how much time you have spent in a warzone and seen a race take advantage of their own kind and you know if we can intervene and help, we damn well better. If your ok with mass genocides that other races commit against women or children you’re a sick person.

Marklar_Prime

Yes, when another “race” kills 10,000 it is genocide but when we kill a million or two in Iraq and poison it’s environment for the next 1,000 years with thousands of tons of DU it is “peace keeping”. The hipocracy would be funny if it weren’t so deadly. Please do not EVER free me or keep peace in my neighborhood, I beg you.

Phil

Nothing is perfect. Would you prefer we pull out and allow them to open up IED factories with funding from their governments? Would you prefer if our troops didnt help oversee the dispersion of our government funding? Would you rather they took the money we sent to build schools and instead buy uranium to make nukes with? There are two enormous evils here but one is far better for you then the other so you should shut up and take what you get. If you would prefer we let them gather weapons and put western nations back into the dark ages let us know. I dont think you would like having to watch out for IEDs driving to work or fear nukes on a daily basis.

E.B. Wolf

The idea that there will be IED and nuke attacks in North America if any country with huge oil reserves isn’t occupied by western mercenaries is so fucking stupid its laughable.

If you seriously believe the bullshit you’re spreading here, you’re either an idiot or coward.

Andrew

IED factories?

Marklar_Prime

I would prefer that there were no troops over there giving them a valid reason to build and plant IEDs. I would prefer that we hadn’t blown up their civilian infrastructure thereby necessitating the need to rebuild it. I would prefer that the US to use intelligence rather than terrorism to promote our corporate business interests. I would prefer that the CIA not create and fund groups like Al CIA duh to stir up shit. I would prefer the US did not train terrorists at the School of the Americas (whatever it’s called now). I would prefer that people pull their heads out of their asses and stop enabling the filthy blood money drunk terrorists that call themselves our “leaders”. I would prefer that the US didn’t fund and then harbor well known and convicted terrorists like Luis Posada-Carriles.

I’m also pretty certain that you are 10x more likely to plant an IED on my morning commute at the direction of the Pentagon than some Afghani goat herder is. Of course, you would still claim it was the Afghani goat herder because false flag terrorism is simply SOP in the western world and has been for the last 50 years at minimum.

With slavishly ignorant nuke wielding troops remaining under the direction of psychopathic elites right here I already have plenty to fear of nukes. Operation Northwoods comes to mind. Then of course there is the highly unstable, racist and terrorist nation of Israel which already HAS nukes but of course we support them and every other truly insane and repressive regime on the planet as long as they allow us to rape and pillage their populace through the IMF and the World Bank or simply line our corporate pockets from jump like the Saudis.

Yes, there are many things I would prefer but until knowledge and wisdom win out over ignorance most of them will remain but a pipe dream.

Anonymous

Nothing is perfect but the countries you’re talking about are far from it. The alternative to invading Iraq and Afghanistan was never “IED factories” opening up all over the country. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have actually been one of the best gifts that Bush could have given Al Qaeda because it now has alienated even moderate Muslims who see their countries as being invaded by foreign powers. If you don’t believe me consider that removing 9/11 from the picture, there’s actually been a 300 percent increase in fatalities from terrorism in the post 9/11 period then when compared with the pre-9/11 period.

You forget to mention that the West has supported Saddam Hussein’s genocide against the Kurds and Shia Muslims. Also the West has support the brutal rule of Indonesian’s President Suharto rule of East Timor which resulted in the deaths of over 100,000 innocent people. I don’t want the US or the West supporting either of these dictators, just because one group is worse than another doesn’t justify the actions of the other.

Tuna Ghost

Would you prefer if our troops didnt help oversee the dispersion of our government funding?
Wait wait wait. Didn’t 14 billion dollars of US aid just fucking disappear from Iraq? Who was overseeing that, buddy?

If you would prefer we let them gather weapons and put western nations back into the dark ages let us know. I dont think you would like having to watch out for IEDs driving to work or fear nukes on a daily basis.

Jesus, do you really see that as a possibility? I live in South Korea and I have a lot of friends in the military and exactly none of them, not the youngest and least educated, have any fears that this is even close to being a possibility if the US moved out of Iraq.

Calypso_1

“You have the right to free speech….everyone who is or ever has been an armed forces member in any modern country has the right to break your fucking jaw” ….

– Does The U.S. Military Actually Protect American Freedom?
Question answered

Phil

I said nothing about americans in that sentence. Im in the canadian forces. Ever watched a human being die? Im sure you enjoy buying coffees every morning and being able to walk to work without landmines in between you and it. Im sure you dont even think about being able to turn on the tap or flick a light switch. You take all this shit for granted. The militarys of the world keep that shit out and try to create stability. No group is perfect but no group of hundreds of thousands should be judged and lumped into one pile.

Andrew

If no group should be lumped into one pile, then why are you whining about an article about the US military and not the Canadian? And why are you ignoring that landmines are usually placed by militaries in the first place?

Is it because you’re the type to break someone’s jaw because they exercised their freedom of speech? If you do that kind of thing, you’re not a protector of liberty or your people but an enemy of them.

WeAreChangeAtlanta

Yeah I think Phil made entirely clear the point of the article with this freudian slip.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PP27FOUX7TCQ5ORPKUWAT2R5V4 Ray

Well being that I was in the military for over four years I
can say that this article isn’t far off from the truth. I never met anyone who
joined the army to fight for “freedom” or for the country or anything
like that. The vast majority of people I know who joined, did it because either
they wanted money for college or didn’t really know what else to do with their life
or simply that thought the job sounded interesting. If you want to keep
believing that everyone who joins the military does it out of love of country
or some honorable reason be my guest but you’re being naive just like I was
when I first joined.

I should also add that part of the reason we’re still having as many problems as we are
in places like Iraq and Afghanistan is because how personnel in the military
treats the local civilians. I’ve heard plenty of stories of units that
mistreated Iraqis at a local checkpoint only to have a bomb go off a few days
later only a few yards away from that same checkpoint. If you’re going to
mistreat the population and then expect them to tell you if insurgents place a
roadside bomb somewhere, you’re only fooling yourself.

I lived in a barracks of about 70 people and of those we had one guy arrested for
statuary rape, two arrested for child pornography, two kicked out of the army
for drugs, one arrested for molesting a niece, one arrested for rape, another
guy caught with an unregistered firearm, and then we had several guys get DUIs
(one guy I know of who got two DUIs in the course of a week and half), and
several people involved in domestic abuse cases. So much for honor…

I should also mention that although most of the people in the barracks were sergeants
and below we had plenty of people like sergeant majors and staff sergeants
who’d been in the army around 20 years who ended up getting DUIs and other similar
offenses. I remember when I first joined the army, one of the other guys
joining with me told me he wanted to join the Marines but because he got a DUI
he wasn’t allowed to but the Army still accepted him.

Phil

I’m in the Canadian Forces. All we do is peacekeep around the world. Alot of the military can be scum but the same can be said about anything. Our lives are so heavily scrutinized and controlled and watched that the chances of being caught for something illegal is far higher than any other profession. Its also an enormous amount of people in militarys so the obviously the numbers of idiots will be higher. No group of people are perfect and some do treat civies like shit but alot dont. You cant lump hundreds of thousands into a group and judge every single one the same. This is like me saying everyone who never enlisted is a pussy who is too scared to make a difference in the world.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PP27FOUX7TCQ5ORPKUWAT2R5V4 Ray

My point wasn’t all members of the military are terrible
people, only that unfortunately there are a lot of them in the military and to
act like everyone joined for honorable reasons is foolish. Although it may seem
that the individual soldiers are extremely scrutinized, the fact is the overall
action they are partaking in are immoral. I don’t think soldiers are
deliberately killing civilians but starting an unnecessary war under the guise
of “peace keeping” in order to overthrow the current government is
wrong especially when the country poses no threat to you. Even though it may
not be intentional, it’s clear they’re taking an action which will result in
the deaths of numerous civilians and damage the infrastructure beyond repair
for some time. It’s the responsibility of people using violence to justify it.

Just because the term peace keeping is used to justify the
war, you should look at who benefits from it and if there’s other similar
country’s that require “peacekeeping” but aren’t receiving any. Countries
starting wars have always come up with some noble excuse to justify their war,
the Japanese claimed they were invading China in order to bring about an
“earthly paradise” and protect the population from “Chinese
bandits”, the Nazis claimed they
were invading Czechoslovakia to end ethnic conflict and bring it’s people the
benefits of advanced civilization, and settlers to North and South America gave
claims like they were trying to civilize and enlighten the population with Christianity.
You can go to the very first wars and find examples of governments coming up
with noble reasons to justify their wars. I wouldn’t be so naive as to believe
that any country is really starting a war just for humanitarian reasons.

smooth_operator

Say what you will, but the war in Libya is anything but peace-keeping or about “saving civilians.”

I’m Canadian as well, and our major role in that illegal undertaking makes me absolutely sick.

Tuna Ghost

Lots of people do fight for freedoms and die for it too.

The US military, you mean? Can you point to a situation where the US military fought for the freedoms of its own citizens? Can you point to a time when the the freedoms of the citizens of North America were under threat? This is a serious question, btw.

90% of what any military does is peacekeeping so you need to shut the fuck up unless you have spent time in the armed forces.

I think the “any military” bit is pretty hard to qualify, but we can ignore that for now. In regard to the US/Canada, please provide me with an instance where they acted as true “peacekeepers” so I can get an idea of what you mean by this.

You have the right to free speech and to say whatever you like.. …and everyone who is or ever has been an armed forces member in any modern country has the right to break your fucking jaw.

…do you really not see the contradiction here? Tell me you’re being ironic or something.

If your ok with mass genocides that other races commit against women or children you’re a sick person.

Agreed, but can you point to a time in the last 50 years where the US actually did attempt to prevent a genocide? Because I point to one where the US actually provided the weapons for a military that promptly when on to commit a genocide. What about the situation in Darfur? What did the US do? What about North Korea, which regularly commits violations of human rights upon its own citizens? What is the US doing to stop this?

Phil

Agreed, this disrespectful shit is disgusting. I’m in the Canadian Forces and 90% of what our militarys do is keep the peace. The worst part of this is its days after the largest one day death toll in afghanistan. Maybe our forces arent perfect but without them there would be hell outside our borders.

Nunzio X

VoxMagi, I also come from a military family—my father put in 30, and his father put in more than 20 (not sure of the exact number of years in his case.)

Military people by and large are good people. The US just can’t afford as many of them as we currently support, nor can we pay for all their benefits forever into the future.

Your POV is right on. The soldiers do the shitty job the politicans send them on.

If I was writing the rules, I’d say: the President can only commit troops to any action for a period no more than 30 days. After that, Congress must vote, by a 65% YES margin, to continue the action and each member of Congress who voted YES must IMMEDIATELY volunteer as a support person, or send a family member in his stead, to a FRONT-LINE COMBAT UNIT. They can wrap bandages or carry water or do whatever the fuck, but they MUST be in harm’s way, not filing papers in Honolulu.

“Oh, wait, Mr. Senator—-you don’t want to go? You don’t want to send your kid in your place? Then FUCK YOU—you have no business voting YES and sending other peoples’ kids off to die. Put your money where your mouth is or shut the fuck up. If it’s important enough to risk other people’s kids, it’s important enough to risk YOUR kids.”

I now await your heated responses.

Anonymous

Fuck them. They vote yes, they can go themselves.

nevertrusta3sum

I think the reason you have trouble finding out what’s happening in other parts of the world has nothing to do with the fact that this article is written, or the fact that people are allowed to spew any kind of vile information on the internetz.. what ever they may be. You can choose to view the content you desire. It’s not like TV were the information comes through, and you have no real choice in options and have no input back into the system.

Your problems seems to be that you don’t know how to search for information you are looking for. Try using scrapers. Use Reddit or Digg as a base for world information. I prefer to use this site to sift through mass information as fast as possible. http://www.jimmyr.com/ ….

IMO The tool usually isn’t the problem. It’s either the tools who created it or the tool trying to use it. That is the problem.

5by5

I would argue that with the present budget excesses, it weakens us, because the homefront can’t sustain itself. It’s like a classic “extension of the front lines” too much. The enemy just flanks you, and fucks you in the arse. This, the Chinese Commies now own us, and we’re cutting funding for schools, and medical care, and everything else that makes a nation healthy.

5by5

I would argue that with the present budget excesses, it weakens us, because the homefront can’t sustain itself. It’s like a classic “extension of the front lines” too much. The enemy just flanks you, and fucks you in the arse. This, the Chinese Commies now own us, and we’re cutting funding for schools, and medical care, and everything else that makes a nation healthy.

http://twitter.com/Marklar_Prime Marklar Kronkite

Yes, when another “race” kills 10,000 it is genocide but when we kill a million or two in Iraq and poison it’s environment for the next 1,000 years with thousands of tons of DU it is “peace keeping”. The hipocracy would be funny if it weren’t so deadly. Please do not EVER free me or keep peace in my neighborhood, I beg you.

Anonymous

I agree provided you say this referring to “after WW2″, because up to that point, our military really was (usually) deployed to protect either our own or our close allies’ countries. Go ask Hawai’i how our freedom was threatened by Japan, I think you’ll find several eloquent replies to your question.

I would also say that since WW2 they’ve only ever been sent out to protect our government’s interests. That’s not at all the same thing as “protecting our freedom” (and actually means actively working against true freedom in some of the places they’ve been sent), but it’s not _always_ a worthless endeavor either. Sometimes getting involved is the right thing to do. Not always. Definitely not all the times they’ve been used. But sometimes.

clayfoot

“You have the right to free speech….everyone who is or ever has been an armed forces member in any modern country has the right to break your fucking jaw” ….

– Does The U.S. Military Actually Protect American Freedom?
Question answered

mxyzptlk

Let me just try a different angle that is too broad to be contained in a simple “protecting our freedoms” sound bite.

For the moment, set aside the reasons for invading places like Afghanistan and Iraq; everyone pretty much knows the stated reasons were never the real reasons (or Bin Laden would have been caught in Tora Bora, or Zarqawi’s Iraqi ricin-making camp in the U.S. controlled no-fly zone would have been dismantled in 2001, not two weeks after the Iraq invasion). Let’s just pretend for the sake of argument that the real goal of Afghanistan was to get Bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks.

The work of the military doesn’t consist solely of killing people. There’s a lot of — for lack of a better term — nation building going on. This includes building schools, clinics, administering health care to locals, etc. Sometimes that’s necessary because the U.S. military destroyed whatever infrastructure was there in the first place, and sometimes that’s necessary because the power regime the military displaced never provided certain necessary services. For instance, one of the reasons the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan after the Soviets pulled out was because there was a power vacuum and they provided the most immediate stability. However, under that regime, women lost all kinds of rights they once had, and even men lost certain rights if they didn’t adhere to religious stipulations (like beard length).

So when you have military personnel in-country setting up clinics, building schools, and trying to establish a political regime that protects individual rights to those services, you’re building positive relations between the U.S. as a country/concept and those local people. No doubt it’s a form of propaganda, but when that happens, those people are less likely to be swayed by counter-propaganda that calls for death to America.

Not that those villagers from Jalalabad or Peshawar or Kirkuk would all of the sudden appear on the shores of South Carolina and start indiscriminately killing everyone. But regionally, they’re less likely to take up arms against another region they’re told is a proxy for U.S. power — India, the Kurdish region, etc. That provides a measure of political stability that allows for economic growth, and it means other countries don’t have to allocate resources to help stabilize a region at a cost to their own people.

For example, if the Afghan adventure had been done right and

A.) The U.S. and British special forces were allowed to pursue Bin Laden in Tora Bora;
B.) The U.S. forces in Afghanistan weren’t strained by resources being re-allocated to Iraq, so they could actually stabilize the Afghan regions where they were deployed; and
C.) The U.S. didn’t waste trillions in Iraq trying to make it a free-market experiment,

then the U.S. wouldn’t be so economically sclerotic and wouldn’t be putting the rest of the world’s economy at risk. Arguably, the goal actually was to create instability by having enough U.S. forces deployed to be disruptive, but spread so thin that they couldn’t create the stability they were supposedly sent to establish. That’s a different question.

But back to the freedoms: Because of the military mismanagement, the U.S. went into a crippling deficit; that money and those resources could have been used to address the housing, infrastructure and Wall Street problems here. Because of that deficit, many in the U.S. are now fighting political battles to maintain freedoms like workers’ right to organize, or womens’ right to birth control and safe abortions, or the right to work in the public sector if you’re homosexual. The right wing in the U.S. has used the deficit — which can be linked to the mismanagement of the two wars — to curtail U.S. citizens’ rights.

Now, I’m not saying that currently deployed U.S. forces are protecting our freedoms. I’m actually saying that the wars were deliberately strung out as long as possible, which created an economic climate that the right has used to attack freedoms in the U.S. However, had the management of the wars matched the propaganda, there wouldn’t have been an Iraq war, Afghanistan would have been over and done with years ago, and we wouldn’t have guaranteed future military involvement in the region by radicalizing locals through torture. There would have been enough forces in Afghanistan to properly train the Afghan military and secure regions from Taliban resurgence, and the international presence that was there would have had more leverage to deal with a corrupt Karzai regime. The result is safer people who don’t feel they can only find security in the radicalized arms of Waziristan.

Yeah, it’s counter-factual, but if that were the case, then we also wouldn’t be stuck with a ruined economy, and the right wing’s challenge of U.S. citizens’ freedoms would have stayed on AM radio. So in theory, the military can protect its own citizens freedoms by establishing positive relations with the people of the countries where they’re deployed. In practice, it just doesn’t work that way.

Nano_Thermite_911

Opium, Oil, Lithium, Proxy control of Middle East. Project for a New American Century.

mxyzptlk

Let me just try a different angle that is too broad to be contained in a simple “protecting our freedoms” sound bite.

For the moment, set aside the reasons for invading places like Afghanistan and Iraq; everyone pretty much knows the stated reasons were never the real reasons (or Bin Laden would have been caught in Tora Bora, or Zarqawi’s Iraqi ricin-making camp in the U.S. controlled no-fly zone would have been dismantled in 2001, not two weeks after the Iraq invasion). Let’s just pretend for the sake of argument that the real goal of Afghanistan was to get Bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks.

The work of the military doesn’t consist solely of killing people. There’s a lot of — for lack of a better term — nation building going on. This includes building schools, clinics, administering health care to locals, etc. Sometimes that’s necessary because the U.S. military destroyed whatever infrastructure was there in the first place, and sometimes that’s necessary because the power regime the military displaced never provided certain necessary services. For instance, one of the reasons the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan after the Soviets pulled out was because there was a power vacuum and they provided the most immediate stability. However, under that regime, women lost all kinds of rights they once had, and even men lost certain rights if they didn’t adhere to religious stipulations (like beard length).

So when you have military personnel in-country setting up clinics, building schools, and trying to establish a political regime that protects individual rights to those services, you’re building positive relations between the U.S. as a country/concept and those local people. No doubt it’s a form of propaganda, but when that happens, those people are less likely to be swayed by counter-propaganda that calls for death to America.

Not that those villagers from Jalalabad or Peshawar or Kirkuk would all of the sudden appear on the shores of South Carolina and start indiscriminately killing everyone. But regionally, they’re less likely to take up arms against another region they’re told is a proxy for U.S. power — India, the Kurdish region, etc. That provides a measure of political stability that allows for economic growth, and it means other countries don’t have to allocate resources to help stabilize a region at a cost to their own people.

For example, if the Afghan adventure had been done right and

A.) The U.S. and British special forces were allowed to pursue Bin Laden in Tora Bora;
B.) The U.S. forces in Afghanistan weren’t strained by resources being re-allocated to Iraq, so they could actually stabilize the Afghan regions where they were deployed; and
C.) The U.S. didn’t waste trillions in Iraq trying to make it a free-market experiment,

then the U.S. wouldn’t be so economically sclerotic and wouldn’t be putting the rest of the world’s economy at risk. Arguably, the goal actually was to create instability by having enough U.S. forces deployed to be disruptive, but spread so thin that they couldn’t create the stability they were supposedly sent to establish. That’s a different question.

But back to the freedoms: Because of the military mismanagement, the U.S. went into a crippling deficit, and because of that deficit, many in the U.S. are now fighting political battles to maintain freedoms like workers’ right to organize, or womens’ right to birth control and safe abortions. The right wing in the U.S. has used the deficit — which can be linked to the mismanagement of the two wars — to curtail U.S. citizens’ rights.

Now, I’m not saying that currently deployed U.S. forces are protecting our freedoms. I’m actually saying that the wars were deliberately strung out as long as possible, which created an economic climate that the right has used to attack freedoms in the U.S. However, had the management of the wars matched the propaganda, there wouldn’t have been an Iraq war, Afghanistan would have been over and done with years ago, and we wouldn’t have guaranteed future military involvement in the region by radicalizing locals through torture. There would have been enough forces in Afghanistan to properly train the Afghan military and secure regions from Taliban resurgence, and the international presence that was there would have had more leverage to deal with a corrupt Karzai regime. The result is safer people who don’t feel they can only find security in the radicalized arms of Waziristan.

Yeah, it’s counter-factual, but if that were the case, then we also wouldn’t be stuck with a ruined economy, and the right wing’s challenge of U.S. citizens’ freedoms would have stayed on AM radio. So in theory, the military can protect its own citizens freedoms by establishing positive relations with the people of the countries where they’re deployed. In practice, it just doesn’t work that way.

Reasor

When I was younger and more naive, I enlisted in the U.S. Army due to a lack of better opportunities in the civilian sector, and I endorse this post. War is a Racket.

Effewe

Yea, I wish they didn’t take people like you. Your part of the problem.. “I just joined for college”

Redacted

And I wish people like you hung yourselves in junior high.

Mr Willow

Many people join the military ‘just for college’ because it is otherwise out of their reach.

Tuna Ghost

Yeah, its better to staff your military with people who have no educational drive and joined simply for the opportunity to kill people. Oh, and for the institutionalized racism, misogyny, and homophobia.

Anonymous

When I was younger and more naive, I enlisted in the U.S. Army due to a lack of better opportunities in the civilian sector, and I endorse this post. War is a Racket.

DeepCough

Honor went out with chivalry, dude. There is no honor in war when war is Hell.

DeepCough

You missed the point: the point is that militarism is being equated with the policies of a “free country” when in fact the freedoms are being slowly eroded away to perpetuate the military industrial complex.

Hadrian999

for some people

Brokenstar

The hell there isn’t. I didn’t arrest NCOs and soliders for being corrupt for the hell of it. The military has a complicated evolving DISCIPLINE based justice system that does everything it can to eliminate murderers and sociopaths. The military is not like the movie platoon…

Brokenstar

I liked the canadian forces. Cool dudes. I met a few.

Effewe

Yea, I wish they didn’t take people like you. Your part of the problem.. “I just joined for college”

Guest

Jin the Ninja is a little yes man turd who agrees with everything. Get some goddamn points of your own and quit trying to be a ninja with a hangul name.

Andrew

He’s disagreed with me.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PP27FOUX7TCQ5ORPKUWAT2R5V4 Ray

Well being that I was in the military for over four years I
can say that this article isn’t far off from the truth. I never met anyone who
joined the army to fight for “freedom” or for the country or anything
like that. The vast majority of people I know who joined, did it because either
they wanted money for college or didn’t really know what else to do with their life
or simply that thought the job sounded interesting. If you want to keep
believing that everyone who joins the military does it out of love of country
or some honorable reason be my guest but you’re being naive just like I was
when I first joined.

I should also add that part of the reason we’re still having as many problems as we are
in places like Iraq and Afghanistan is because how personnel in the military
treats the local civilians. I’ve heard plenty of stories of units that
mistreated Iraqis at a local checkpoint only to have a bomb go off a few days
later only a few yards away from that same checkpoint. If you’re going to
mistreat the population and then expect them to tell you if insurgents place a
roadside bomb somewhere, you’re only fooling yourself.

I lived in a barracks of about 70 people and of those we had one guy arrested for
statuary rape, two arrested for child pornography, two kicked out of the army
for drugs, one arrested for molesting a niece, one arrested for rape, another
guy caught with an unregistered firearm, and then we had several guys get DUIs
(one guy I know of who got two DUIs in the course of a week and half), and
several people involved in domestic abuse cases. So much for honor…

I should also mention that although most of the people in the barracks were sergeants
and below we had plenty of people like sergeant majors and staff sergeants
who’d been in the army around 20 years who ended up getting DUIs and other similar
offenses. I remember when I first joined the army, one of the other guys
joining with me told me he wanted to join the Marines but because he got a DUI
he wasn’t allowed to but the Army still accepted him.

Anonymous

You mad?

Anonymous

And I wish people like you hung yourselves in junior high.

http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

Hell yes…90% of our military-related problems would be solved if the people picking the fights had more at stake than a few investments. I’ve noticed that its a universal human condition to feel a lot braver about where to send troops when you won’t have to go with them or personally bury any of them. I put a much higher value on the life of servicepeople than 99% of the pseudo-patriotic asswipes out there…because I don’t believe in squandering the lives of our people over a few miles of dirt unless we’re forced into it by serious necessity.

Phil

No you idiot they are going to kill their own civilians and fund terrorism groups who kill us. Have you ever served in any military? You have no clue how the world works. And as for the nations you listed north korea has the capability to wipe us cities off the map from across the earth. Think before you spew this shit.

Phil

I’m in the Canadian Forces. All we do is peacekeep around the world. Alot of the military can be scum but the same can be said about anything. Our lives are so heavily scrutinized and controlled and watched that the chances of being caught for something illegal is far higher than any other profession. Its also an enormous amount of people in militarys so the obviously the numbers of idiots will be higher. No group of people are perfect and some do treat civies like shit but alot dont. You cant lump hundreds of thousands into a group and judge every single one the same. This is like me saying everyone who never enlisted is a pussy who is too scared to make a difference in the world.

Phil

I said nothing about americans in that sentence. Im in the canadian forces. Ever watched a human being die? Im sure you enjoy buying coffees every morning and being able to walk to work without landmines in between you and it. Im sure you dont even think about being able to turn on the tap or flick a light switch. You take all this shit for granted. The militarys of the world keep that shit out and try to create stability. No group is perfect but no group of hundreds of thousands should be judged and lumped into one pile.

Phil

Nothing is perfect. Would you prefer we pull out and allow them to open up IED factories with funding from their governments? Would you prefer if our troops didnt help oversee the dispersion of our government funding? Would you rather they took the money we sent to build schools and instead buy uranium to make nukes with? There are two enormous evils here but one is far better for you then the other so you should shut up and take what you get. If you would prefer we let them gather weapons and put western nations back into the dark ages let us know. I dont think you would like having to watch out for IEDs driving to work or fear nukes on a daily basis.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FD7TC4KADAOA57V2Q7WAUZ76PU Dan Webb

I was in the military, I don’t think these people are evil, they just believe the bs propaganda the government and media have told them. If they really protected our freedom, they would be bombing Washington, not helpless kids in the Middle East. They’re just corporate mercenaries who think they’re freedom fighters.

tooCents

Problem is, as this piece points out, there aren’t any excuses anymore for believing the government propaganda. The military people aren’t in general stupid (even Marines hahaa). They don’t really care too much about possibly fighting in illegal and unjust wars or perhaps even killing innocents… OR they wouldn’t join. They’ll say it isn’t their job to decide which wars to fight, they just do the fighting -not accepting any responsibility. Or most. I’m speaking in general terms of course. The easiest thing in the world is for people that are hungry for money and social recognition, and that have found a way they believe will provide this to them, to delude themselves.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FD7TC4KADAOA57V2Q7WAUZ76PU Dan Webb

I was in the military, I don’t think these people are evil, they just believe the bs propaganda the government and media have told them. If they really protected our freedom, they would be bombing Washington, not helpless kids in the Middle East. They’re just corporate mercenaries who think they’re freedom fighters.

Mr Willow

Many people join the military ‘just for college’ because it is otherwise out of their reach.

DeepCough

Yeah, here was Gen. George S Patton’s idea of honor:

“You idiot, you’re not supposed to die for your country, you’re supposed to get the other guy to die for his!”

Andrew

North Korea does not have the capability to wipe US cities off the map.

E.B. Wolf

The idea that there will be IED and nuke attacks in North America if any country with huge oil reserves isn’t occupied by western mercenaries is so fucking stupid its laughable.

If you seriously believe the bullshit you’re spreading here, you’re either an idiot or coward.

Hadrian999

what does that have to do with what you are responding to

Andrew

IED factories?

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PP27FOUX7TCQ5ORPKUWAT2R5V4 Ray

My point wasn’t all members of the military are terrible
people, only that unfortunately there are a lot of them in the military and to
act like everyone joined for honorable reasons is foolish. Although it may seem
that the individual soldiers are extremely scrutinized, the fact is the overall
action they are partaking in are immoral. I don’t think soldiers are
deliberately killing civilians but starting an unnecessary war under the guise
of “peace keeping” in order to overthrow the current government is
wrong especially when the country poses no threat to you. Even though it may
not be intentional, it’s clear they’re taking an action which will result in
the deaths of numerous civilians and damage the infrastructure beyond repair
for some time. It’s the responsibility of people using violence to justify it.

Just because the term peace keeping is used to justify the
war, you should look at who benefits from it and if there’s other similar
country’s that require “peacekeeping” but aren’t receiving any. Countries
starting wars have always come up with some noble excuse to justify their war,
the Japanese claimed they were invading China in order to bring about an
“earthly paradise” and protect the population from “Chinese
bandits”, the Nazis claimed they
were invading Czechoslovakia to end ethnic conflict and bring it’s people the
benefits of advanced civilization, and settlers to North and South America gave
claims like they were trying to civilize and enlighten the population with Christianity.
You can go to the very first wars and find examples of governments coming up
with noble reasons to justify their wars. I wouldn’t be so naive as to believe
that any country is really starting a war just for humanitarian reasons.

Andrew

If no group should be lumped into one pile, then why are you whining about an article about the US military and not the Canadian? And why are you ignoring that landmines are usually placed by militaries in the first place?

Is it because you’re the type to break someone’s jaw because they exercised their freedom of speech? If you do that kind of thing, you’re not a protector of liberty or your people but an enemy of them.

DeepCough

The most fun about reading–is reading between the lines!

DAHagelberg

Grace Unto You And Peace,

Expressing opinion is nice, but farming a field brings in rice. Cute! But what is the point? What is the present unemployment rate? Will we go into a second recession? Are some people wagering that we will? Does all the palavar about not spending make sense?If we were in such a recession-doubler before how did we get out of it?

In 1929-1941 the world had a recession. The United States followed the economist JM Keynes in borrowing money in order to pump the economic pump. Conservatives objected and the pump prematurely went off: 1934 and 1937. The Recession/Depression lifted by slumped back into its depth in those two years. JM Keynes wrote in his notebook that if the big ecoonomies did not pump-prime in sufficent amounts, then the only other thing to get people out of Recession/Depression would be war. And yes, “War” is an example of pump-priming. But do not tell that to the opposition. They will not like you.

What am I getting at? Recession/Depression, Pump-priming or War?

Those people with the least training will become the foot-soldiers who are killed in large numbers. The officer corp can be re-trained for business, after we win. But whatever we do, let us not become the objects of derission pointed at by Conservatives who start and yell for war as a sdolution to our economic problems.

If what I am typing is not true, then name a country in which there is NOT a U.S. military mission? When the oil contracts went up for bid in Iraq, did at least one American company win a contract? If so, which one. Was that worth those soldiers who died? “Weapons of Mass Destruction!” In order to “get” the congress into the fighting mood, where copies of “military intelligence’ developed by the Central Intelligence Agency, set to other, foreign “Intelligence” services, anonnomously sent to foreign country intelligence agencies and then, pointed to as an excuse to invade Iraq?

Was Osama binLaden a Moslim? If you accept the description he used to describe himself, why-YES!. But if you use a definition which Moslim’s use to define themselves in terms to the call to prayer, then Osama was an atheist. Because the Call states that God is the most merciful, the most compassionate. Osama killed without regard to age, sex, belief, economics…whatever. One is left with Osama the atheist.

Osama is accompanied by Christian ministers on shuck and jive T.V., by Roman Catolic Pederistic priests who remain outslde of the Civil Law, and by Jews who strut their religion but do not contribute to one living Rebbe.

Just as there is no more air which we should be able to pollute, also let it fall that there are no more
wars in which we air to shoot, there should be an end to war as a means to accumulate wealth…and in its place should be companies with Google’s operating principal- develop it as long as it seems to generate inexpensive, needed services: innovation or “lambda.”

Prime the pump and de-commision the operating contingents.

DAHagelberg

Grace Unto You And Peace,

Expressing opinion is nice, but farming a field brings in rice. Cute! But what is the point? What is the present unemployment rate? Will we go into a second recession? Are some people wagering that we will? Does all the palavar about not spending make sense?If we were in such a recession-doubler before how did we get out of it?

In 1929-1941 the world had a recession. The United States followed the economist JM Keynes in borrowing money in order to pump the economic pump. Conservatives objected and the pump prematurely went off: 1934 and 1937. The Recession/Depression lifted by slumped back into its depth in those two years. JM Keynes wrote in his notebook that if the big ecoonomies did not pump-prime in sufficent amounts, then the only other thing to get people out of Recession/Depression would be war. And yes, “War” is an example of pump-priming. But do not tell that to the opposition. They will not like you.

What am I getting at? Recession/Depression, Pump-priming or War?

Those people with the least training will become the foot-soldiers who are killed in large numbers. The officer corp can be re-trained for business, after we win. But whatever we do, let us not become the objects of derission pointed at by Conservatives who start and yell for war as a sdolution to our economic problems.

If what I am typing is not true, then name a country in which there is NOT a U.S. military mission? When the oil contracts went up for bid in Iraq, did at least one American company win a contract? If so, which one. Was that worth those soldiers who died? “Weapons of Mass Destruction!” In order to “get” the congress into the fighting mood, where copies of “military intelligence’ developed by the Central Intelligence Agency, set to other, foreign “Intelligence” services, anonnomously sent to foreign country intelligence agencies and then, pointed to as an excuse to invade Iraq?

Was Osama binLaden a Moslim? If you accept the description he used to describe himself, why-YES!. But if you use a definition which Moslim’s use to define themselves in terms to the call to prayer, then Osama was an atheist. Because the Call states that God is the most merciful, the most compassionate. Osama killed without regard to age, sex, belief, economics…whatever. One is left with Osama the atheist.

Osama is accompanied by Christian ministers on shuck and jive T.V., by Roman Catolic Pederistic priests who remain outslde of the Civil Law, and by Jews who strut their religion but do not contribute to one living Rebbe.

Just as there is no more air which we should be able to pollute, also let it fall that there are no more
wars in which we air to shoot, there should be an end to war as a means to accumulate wealth…and in its place should be companies with Google’s operating principal- develop it as long as it seems to generate inexpensive, needed services: innovation or “lambda.”

Prime the pump and de-commision the operating contingents.

Hadrian999

your statement had no bearing on honor or the ucmj, i guess reading between imaginary lines is fun for you

E.B. Wolf

CANADA…FUCK YEA!!!
Nope. Team Canada World Police just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

http://twitter.com/Marklar_Prime Marklar Kronkite

I would prefer that there were no troops over there giving them a valid reason to build and plant IEDs. I would prefer that we hadn’t blown up their civilian infrastructure thereby necessitating the need to rebuild it. I would prefer that the US to use intelligence rather than terrorism to promote our corporate business interests. I would prefer that the CIA not create and fund groups like Al CIA duh to stir up shit. I would prefer the US did not train terrorists at the School of the Americas (whatever it’s called now). I would prefer that people pull their heads out of their asses and stop enabling the filthy blood money drunk terrorists that call themselves our “leaders”. I would prefer that the US didn’t fund and then harbor well known and convicted terrorists like Luis Posada-Carriles.

I’m also pretty certain that you are 10x more likely to plant an IED on my morning commute at the direction of the Pentagon than some Afghani goat herder is. Of course, you would still claim it was the Afghani goat herder because false flag terrorism is simply SOP in the western world and has been for the last 50 years at minimum.

With slavishly ignorant nuke wielding troops remaining under the direction of psychopathic elites right here I already have plenty to fear of nukes. Operation Northwoods comes to mind. Then of course there is the highly unstable, racist and terrorist nation of Israel which already HAS nukes but of course we support them and every other truly insane and repressive regime on the planet as long as they allow us to rape and pillage their populace through the IMF and the World Bank or simply line our corporate pockets from jump like the Saudis.

Yes, there are many things I would prefer but until knowledge and wisdom win out over ignorance most of them will remain but a pipe dream.

Anonymous

I dig it lol

Anonymous

You dispose of Honor as only a man with none can.

Nunzio X

I doubt it, but even if what you’re saying is true, how is killing us “taking our freedom?”

“Freedom” is different from “life.” And when someone says the troops are “fighting for our freedom,” that’s not the same thing as saying “they’re protecting our lives.”

If the US hadn’t panicked in the wake of 9-11 and instituted the “Patriot” Act, we’d be just as free today as we were on 9-10. Bascially, Woody Allen got lucky and managed to punch Mike Tyson in the nose and draw a little blood, then Tyson went apeshit with fear and started throwing money everywhere and jumping into the audience to beat the shit out of innocent spectators by way of response to his bloody nose. And he kept behaving this way for TEN YEARS afterward.

Whatever freedom we’re losing, we’re losing it at the hands of our own government. The troops prevent that HOW, exactly?

Anonymous

Nothing is perfect but the countries you’re talking about are far from it. The alternative to invading Iraq and Afghanistan was never “IED factories” opening up all over the country. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have actually been one of the best gifts that Bush could have given Al Qaeda because it now has alienated even moderate Muslims who see their countries as being invaded by foreign powers. If you don’t believe me consider that removing 9/11 from the picture, there’s actually been a 300 percent increase in fatalities from terrorism in the post 9/11 period then when compared with the pre-9/11 period.

You forget to mention that the West has supported Saddam Hussein’s genocide against the Kurds and Shia Muslims. Also the West has support the brutal rule of Indonesian’s President Suharto rule of East Timor which resulted in the deaths of over 100,000 innocent people. I don’t want the US or the West supporting either of these dictators, just because one group is worse than another doesn’t justify the actions of the other.

Nano_Thermite_911

We created AlQueda excuse me, AL CIA DUH.

Nano_Thermite_911

Opium, Oil, Lithium, Proxy control of Middle East. Project for a New American Century.

Patt Tillman’s Ghost

Warriors who simply follow orders are demoted to soldiers in my mind.
A mercenary and a warrior are different things. Pat Tillman was a Warrior sacrificed on the altar of propaganda. Those who see through the lies and speak out regardless of whether they are enlisted or a civilian are the true warriors. The remainder still drawing fiat federal reserve notes as a pay off to fall in line and not question their master. The sooner the soldier understands this is the sooner he regains the honor and sovereignty of a true Warrior.

WeAreChangeAtlanta

Who creates the Hell? Ever researched False Flag Attacks? Perhaps you are being a bit politically naive? The rich play both sides and collect the spoils. The pawns are our soldiers willing to risk death for the lies of the elite puppet masters. War is a Racket after all. Also we are not responsible for intervening and policing the world. This was not the intention of the founding fathers whatsoever.

WeAreChangeAtlanta

Yeah I think Phil made entirely clear the point of the article with this freudian slip.

DeepCough

You must be one of those people that gets a real hard-on when you watch the “Rambo” movies, huh?

Guest

truth is, we were never “free” before 9/11 either.. the patriot act just made things worse.. we aren’t the most open-minded, liberal country in the world, that’s for sure.. it’s more than just 9/11.. the criminals who run this country were still around way before then.. but i understand the point you made.

Anonymous

Say what you will, but the war in Libya is anything but peace-keeping or about “saving civilians.”

I’m Canadian as well, and our major role in that illegal undertaking makes me absolutely sick.

Tuna Ghost

Surely though, we need whoever’s in charge to not have too much personal investment in things like that? Impartial judgement is important in these cases, and that can’t happen if everyone in charge has a loved one that will have to fight. Wouldn’t you say that impartial judgement is best?

Tuna Ghost

I’ll ask you what I asked the other guy–surely impartial judgement is better than otherwise? How could the leaders be impartial if all of them had a loved one involved in the fighting?

Tuna Ghost

…north korea has the capability to wipe us cities off the map from across the earth.
That hasn’t been proven (in fact its very unlikely given that the US has a defense system in place to handle the shit-grade weapons N Korea has, not to mention the fact that there are several US bases near Pyongyang trained to respond to this exact scenario), and besides since the war the US has not performed any military intervention in North Korea. I think they should, mind you, but not because N Korea is any real threat to the US or S Korea. The US should intervene because N Korea regularly violates the human rights of its own citizens and allows them to starve to death. In 2005 over a million N Korean citizens died from starvation, an atrocity that could have been prevented if the US had just gone in there and taken out the political leaders. That’s a country that needs to be torn down and rebuilt, not Iraq or Afghanistan.

So yeah. Do some research before you post.

(edited for grammatical errors)

Tuna Ghost

we aren’t the most open-minded, liberal country in the world, that’s for sure…

I’m not about to suggest we’re as free as the general populace likes to believe, but if we’re supposed to understand “open-minded, liberal” to essentially mean “freedom” (which your post seems to do), I’m curious as to what country you see as more “free” than the US. The United States still has a remarkable level of freedooms available to its citizens when compared to the rest of the world. Which countries do you see surpassing us in that regard?

Tuna Ghost

Agreed. I’m not sure why people in the US see N Korea as a threat. Really, they’re a much much bigger threat to their own population. Not even South Korea is afraid of North Korea. When N Korea acts up, like it did a couple times last year, S Korean servicemen are more annoyed than afraid because guard shifts are extended and leaves are canceled.

Tuna Ghost

A hangul name? Really? Where do you see evidence of this?

Tuna Ghost

A hangul name? Really? Where do you see evidence of this?

Tuna Ghost

A hangul name? Really? Where do you see evidence of this?

Tuna Ghost

Yeah, its better to staff your military with people who have no educational drive and joined simply for the opportunity to kill people. Oh, and for the institutionalized racism, misogyny, and homophobia.

Tuna Ghost

Yeah, its better to staff your military with people who have no educational drive and joined simply for the opportunity to kill people. Oh, and for the institutionalized racism, misogyny, and homophobia.

Tuna Ghost

That…has no bearing at all on the points made.

Tuna Ghost

rrrrrrright. In other words, “I can’t prove that what I wrote isn’t completely irrelevant and not at all on topic, but I don’t want to admit that I wasted everyone’s time”

Tuna Ghost

again, what on earth does that have to do with anything? Even if Hadrian does get sexually stimulated watching Sly Stone kill minorities, how in the seven hells does that have anything to do with what anyone wrote???

Tuna Ghost

I can’t speak to Canada’s military, which I’ve always viewed as a pretty unimportant on the global scale, but the US military is not and has not been interested in protecting the “freedom” of its citizens. That hasn’t been necessary since the end of WWII, so I don’t say this as a criticism. Protecting the constitutional freedoms was never really its job in the first place, so I don’t really see how that would be a criticism anyway.

But. But but but. In the last 50 or so years, the military actions it has engaged in have been, every single one, more about making sure America’s military and, ultimately, financial interests are being served by foreign countries. This has enabled US citizens to enjoy the freedom to buy SUVs and the like, to enjoy cultural supremacy on a level so far unheard of in world history.

Maybe our forces arent perfect but without them there would be hell outside our borders.

Like I said, I can’t claim to have much knowledge about Canada’s military, but the US military does not hold “keeping the peace” to be of much importance compared to its military and financial interests. In fact, its quite the opposite: in the last 50 years the US has disrupted the peace on several occasions in several countries in order to expand its influence, or to make sure various countries have the “proper” government, i.e. a government that knows whose interests are to be served first and foremost. This has been demonstrated time and time again, most recently in Iraq. I don’t include Afghanistan, since I would shed no tears at all if the Taliban were completely destroyed, and Afghanistan is the armpit of the world anyway so its pretty difficult to make it any worse. Even so, the examples of the US disrupting the peace to serve its own interests are all over the place. Surely you don’t deny this?

DeepCough

“There is no honor in volunteering to go anywhere in the world and kill
anybody you are told to, without question, without historical background
and without verifying the stated reasons for doing so.”

There, that relevant enough for you, Tuna Ghost?

Tuna Ghost

Also we are not responsible for intervening and policing the world.

I must disagree here. The US is the only nation capable of doing so, and with great power comes great responsibility blah blah blah. The US does have a responsibility, due to its great power, to protect the peace.

This was not the intention of the founding fathers whatsoever.

Well no, of course not. The founding fathers could never have foreseen that after World War II the US would emerge as the sole remaining superpower in the world. That doesn’t mean anything, though. Just because when, at its inception, the US was a tiny nation dwarfed by powers like Britain and France and a great many others that doesn’t mean we have any real responsibility to adhere to the ideas regarding foreign relations of the men who were in charge at that time. Doing so would pretty silly, don’t you think?

Tuna Ghost

Lots of people do fight for freedoms and die for it too.

The US military, you mean? Can you point to a situation where the US military fought for the freedoms of its own citizens? Can you point to a time when the the freedoms of the citizens of North America were under threat? This is a serious question, btw.

90% of what any military does is peacekeeping so you need to shut the fuck up unless you have spent time in the armed forces.

I think the “any military” bit is pretty hard to qualify, but we can ignore that for now. In regard to the US/Canada, please provide me with an instance where they acted as true “peacekeepers” so I can get an idea of what you mean by this.

You have the right to free speech and to say whatever you like.. …and everyone who is or ever has been an armed forces member in any modern country has the right to break your fucking jaw.

…do you really not see the contradiction here? Tell me you’re being ironic or something.

If your ok with mass genocides that other races commit against women or children you’re a sick person.

Agreed, but can you point to a time in the last 50 years where the US actually did attempt to prevent a genocide? Because I point to one where the US actually provided the weapons for a military that promptly when on to commit a genocide. What about the situation in Darfur? What did the US do? What about North Korea, which regularly commits violations of human rights upon its own citizens? What is the US doing to stop this?

Tuna Ghost

Would you prefer if our troops didnt help oversee the dispersion of our government funding?
Wait wait wait. Didn’t 14 billion dollars of US aid just fucking disappear from Iraq? Who was overseeing that, buddy?

If you would prefer we let them gather weapons and put western nations back into the dark ages let us know. I dont think you would like having to watch out for IEDs driving to work or fear nukes on a daily basis.

Jesus, do you really see that as a possibility? I live in South Korea and I have a lot of friends in the military and exactly none of them, not the youngest and least educated, have any fears that this is even close to being a possibility if the US moved out of Iraq.

Tuna Ghost

Finally. Although one would think the “honor” comes from answering the call to serve one’s country, rather than the actual firing of a gun at someone who is firing a gun at you.

Tuna Ghost

Finally. Although one would think the “honor” comes from answering the call to serve one’s country, rather than the actual firing of a gun at someone who is firing a gun at you.

Anonymous

LOL! didn’t even have balls enough to say to my face?

My name isn’t hangul although i know there are different characters associated with the korean name of the same pronunciation.

And the pronunciation for the Kanji in japanese is “Jin” which i prefer.

Interestingly enough “Jin” (jin4 in pinyin) in mandarin which is the character for “golden” or “gilded” is a direct translation of my western middle name from latin.

Hanzi, or chinese characters, form the basis for both hangul and kanji, as a native mandarin speaker, i like the word play of intermixing characters. Makes it interesting.

Nils

I would like to see valid proof that impartial judgement is necessarily better than judgement by involvement.
Sure, I am not going to be “affected” in my decision-making by the deaths of thousands of people, but is this really “better”? This I’d like to see ‘proven’. You can easier cause the deaths of people in remote areas if you’re not involved, to this I agree, but is this in any way “better”? Idontthinkso.
What makes you believe that politicians – especially when driven by business interests of arms manufacturers, or other corporations who have vested geostrategic interests – are impartial? Assuming that Washington and also European capitals were no centers for lobbying activity would be a little naive I think.
Impartial they are rarely, now the question is do we want them being “affected” (driven) by the observing the value of human lives or by corporations?

http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

Actually…I can answer that. Impartiality is only achieved when there is equality on the cost benefit side of the analysis. So for a person to have a vested stake in the outcome of conflict…it should be both personal risk of loss AND gain. Then they become impartial. As it stands…no impartiality exists, because there is no personal risk and enormous personal gain via investments…and so the decision making process becomes skewed in favor of approving conflict easily. The other alternative would be to eliminate the right to any financial gain from a conflict for those who make the decisions…suddenly the appetite for war has less appeal when, even though they aren’t at personal risk, they stand to gain nothing. As it stands…we presently have the most skewed of all scenarios, the least impartial of all.

http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

Well done…so the list of languages wasn’t mere braggadocio…you are a polyglot linguist.

I copped out after studying latin a little and making note of similarities in Western/European language. I am fluent in nothing save English…but with time and effort I can make sense of a lot as long as its Romance language based.

Do have a friend who is a true polygot…fluent in English, Russian, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, German, Italian and a whole string of Latin American native dialects. She’s teaching at a university in Mexico now…archaeology and anthropology (especially with regard to evolution of language.) I find it fascinating…but too demanding to keep my interest peaked.

Anonymous

Well it was a bit of braggadocio- but i AM fluent in mando, english, french, bahasa, and german. Passing knowledge of latin, canto, and spanish.

Anonymous

in his imagination apparently;)

Tuna Ghost

I would like to see valid proof that impartial judgement is necessarily better than judgement by involvement.

What, seriously? Centuries of legal precedent don’t do it for you? That’s why judges are forced to recuse themselves if they have a personal connection to anyone involved in a case, because its difficult to the point of impossible to remain impartial, and impartial judgement is and has been considered the fairest for as long as there has been courts. I…I don’t understand how you can’t see that.

Tuna Ghost

Regardless of whatever we have now, ensuring that the people in charge have a huge personal connection to the events their supposed to be in charge of is a huge mistake. That’s why judges are forced to recuse themselves from cases in which they have a personal connection to anyone involved.

CamronWiltshire

I agree. Well said Vox

Pinkelephantcollective

Tuna you are the last person that should be pointing out ‘logical fallacies’. Be sure to check the swiss cheesed steel girder in your own eye before you point out the nano thermitic residue in your brothers.

Also I think Deep Cough nailed it with his Rambo joke.

Bethechangeatlanta

Check my above comment. Perhaps you should re familiarize yourself with the concept of projection. Tuna you waste incalculable man hours with your constant red herring offensives on so many posts throughout the interwebs. People in glass houses…

Pat Tillman’s Ghost

So when any serviceman swears to protect the oath against enemies foreign and domestic, to you that doesn’t entail protecting constitutional freedoms as laid out explicitly in the constitution, which they are swearing to defend against enemies foreign or domestic? What exactly would they be swearing to protect then in your mind? Do you have any evidence to back up such historical revisionism?

Conflating the current or recent behavior with the intention of the founding fathers and the sworn oaths to enter into military service is another logical fallacy (Composition).

So what would you say was the original intention of the founding fathers in regards to military service and their sworn oaths. What evidence do you have to derive such fantasy that “protecting the constitutional freedoms was never really its job in the first place”

Pat Tillman’s Ghost

The Oath of Enlistment (for enlistees):

“I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

The Oath of Office (for officers):

“I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God.”

WeAreChangeAtlanta

No I don’t think it is silly. I think they very clearly understood the complexities of military warfare and foreign policy and understood we were best served by tending our own gardens not becoming another empire. But hey maybe being trillions of dollars in debt and being dependent on a war economy while having every right as afforded by the Constitution in eternal jeopardy and bartered for so called “security” is the Orwellian nightmare you would prefer for the US. Also it becomes clear that the US was brought into WW2 just to enable the slide in to Tyranny we are experiencing now. I think you are rather silly and an obvious shill. You who will argue across the spectrum to ignore the evidence of the crimes of September 11th as though they were purely an abstract thought exercise with no price in human life or suffering. We know who you are Tuna.

Hadrian999

been away, no I don’t get aroused by rambo, though i will admit to enjoying the first and last. honor isn’t found in causes good or bad, nor strictly in military service, it is found in conduct and integrity and being true to your word even when it has a terrible cost to yourself, discussing honor with the general populace and especially post modern hipsters who have never done a hard thing in their life is pointless but keep making oh so knowing pop culture references and sipping your trendy drink of choice if it makes you happy, good luck and I hope some day you have the opportunity to find out who you really are.

DeepCough

For the record, there are Nine Circles of Hell.

DeepCough

You call me a hipster? Now who’s resorting to ad hoc stereotypes, bitch? Maybe if you didn’t allow yourself to be taken in by the slick ad campaign of the Department of “Defense,” you’d see what the military is actually being used for: to wage hostile takeovers of other nations to garner profits for greedy corporations like Halliburton.

Tuna Ghost

Hey pal I was a philosophy major, when I say “logical fallacy” I mean the damn logical fallacy with its latin name and all that jazz. That’s not a word I throw around lightly.

…except for Argumentum Verbosium, because it sounds like a spell from Harry Potter. I yell that out loud every chance I get. And when I’m working on proofs, I use Reductio ad absurdum every chance I can because its my favorite argument…and because it sounds like a Harry Potter spell.

Nano_Thermite_911

All hail the philosophy major who feels the need to throw big words around in their latin form. The problem is you obviously use your awareness for obfuscation. Let me guess you studied at Slytherin and your minor was in sophistry. I’m not your pal Tuna.

Tuna Ghost

So far, buddy, pal, friend, compadre, amigo, tomodachi, chingu, your primary and repeated criticisms of me have been that I ask that you to read too much and that I use too many big words and confuse you. I mean, jesus, really? How is that not pathetic? Maybe you ought to stop blaming other people for your reading problems and investigate why no one else makes these sort of complaints about anyone else. Seriously, you want to discuss and debate but we can’t make you read a lot and we can’t use big words? Do you not see a problem here? Why don’t you just stick to YouTube which is obviously more your speed? You’re not going to find long paragraphs or hard words there so you’re not going to have to ask your opponents to dumb down their arguments.

Tuna Ghost

Oh for god’s sake, do you have some sort of learning disorder? I’m not saying the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan was justified, nor the outrageous spending on “Defense”. I have, numerous times, stated the exact opposite of that. Not that you bother to read or understand the things you’ve read. But military intervention in places like Darfur, in which we could have easily made a difference and saved thousands of lives, are the responsibility of whatever power is capable of saving those lives. The US has a lot of power that can be used for good instead of the mafia-esque racket it is currently running. And US involvement in WWII was only instigated so the US could be the remaining superpower after the war? Are you serious? That shows a complete disregard for history. And leave it to a Truther to drag 9/11 into anything whether its appropriate or not. Oh, and for the record: in the future, if you’re attempting to sound menacing in an online forum–just don’t. It makes you look like a complete ass with absolutely no self-awareness.

Jesus. Next you’re going to accuse me of asking you to read too much or of using too many big words like your cousin up there.

Tuna Ghost

yeah, that wasn’t a reply to anything you wrote. Look again, buddy.

WeAreChangeAtlanta

Whatever Tuna. Everyone knows who you are. State Apologists masquerading as a “Hipster” attempting to ingratiate yourself into an online community while slipping in the subtle sophistry of a sociopath. You don’t give a shit for any real human values, no matter how much spin or verbal make up you apply you still are polishing turds to keep the sheep asleep. If you seriously want a debate lets take off these nice anonymous internet masks and debate either face to face or via Skype. Let the world see who you are, of course we know you can’t possibly reveal your true identity in a debate because then everyone would realize who the pathetic mouse behind the keyboard is. Every drop of blood spilt for the lies of 9/11 You Enable. Just think about that before you pen another lie. And don’t think you can talk your way out of absolutes. The laws of physics don’t bend even for pretentious propagandists like yourself. You’ve been called out AGAIN. Let’s see what your made of. You can talk whatever shit you like but at the end of the day you ALWAYS, repeat ALWAYS back down when it comes time to show yourself. You spend countless hours debating manufactured red herring minutiae avoiding all accountability to reason. Why are you so afraid of being revealed? It’s too difficult to maintain an illusion when people can see right through your projected apparition is why.

Anonymous

Problem is, as this piece points out, there aren’t any excuses anymore for believing the government propaganda. The military people aren’t in general stupid (even Marines hahaa). They don’t really care too much about possibly fighting in illegal and unjust wars or perhaps even killing innocents… OR they wouldn’t join. They’ll say it isn’t their job to decide which wars to fight, they just do the fighting -not accepting any responsibility. Or most. I’m speaking in general terms of course. The easiest thing in the world is for people that are hungry for money and social recognition, and that have found a way they believe will provide this to them, to delude themselves.

Tuna Ghost

Whatever Tuna.
Wow. You can just dismiss all the ways you are incorrect with two words. That’s…pretty impressive, guy.

State Apologists masquerading as a “Hipster” attempting to ingratiate yourself into an online community while slipping in the subtle sophistry of a sociopath.

Since that sounds far more exciting than my actual life, I’m going to just go with this. Tell me, am I working alone or am I part of some cabal? Do I receive wages or am I doing this pro bono? Can’t I be a hipster and a shill infiltrating Disinfo (because its so important the government must have people trying to get on the inside) working for the government? Do I spend all my time hunting down and discrediting the tiny minority that make up the 9/11 Truth movement, or do I have a day job? And, in case no one has brought this idea to your attention, are you entirely sure that you’re not just a guy on the internet who desperately needed some excitement in his life and who, having stopped arguing the facts of the matter because the many questions you can’t answer, has now constructed an elaborate fantasy that positions yourself as fighting for truth and justice against shadowy government agents and is now demanding the personal information of people who disagree with you?

Oooh! Since you’re demanding my personal information, does that make you my stalker? That’s sort of a mark of distinction here. Can I tell people you’re my stalker? I’m going to tell people you’re my stalker.

Tuna Ghost

Huh! Well, never let it be said I’m unable to admit when I’m wrong. Having seen no evidence of servicemen protecting my constitutional rights, I assumed (incorrectly) that was never their job. I must say, however, that it seems they are being used for other purposes than protecting my constitutional rights, which seems shameful.

WeAreChangAtlanta

Your own paranoid projections aside. I know you are a liar. The rest is like so much of the other shit you spew on this site, irrelevant. I know you are a coward because as you present your tripe you refuse to man up or stand up to anything you say, hiding behind the anonymity of your screen name. You have been stalking 9/11 Truth posts for sometime. Anyone paying attention can see this. Why you are so hard up to do so is anyone’s guess. You’re OBVIOUS red herrings aside, the challenge still stands and you still won’t put up.

Tuna Ghost

There’s a word for men who attempt to get personal information and interaction from the people on the internet. You tell me I’m responsible for the blood spilt since 9/11 and you want a more personal interaction? Yeah, no thanks. That doesn’t sound terribly safe, and I’m already more involved in your pathetic fantasies than I’m comfortable with.

WeAreChangAtlanta

“Every drop of blood spilt for the lies of 9/11 You Enable. Just think about that before you pen another lie” This is what I said. Why are you so incapable of accurately portraying information? Also I would be happy to present my name in any debate. I’m not afraid to stand behind my words. You’re involved in pathetic fantasies alright, they spew out of your mouth like a broken sewer line everytime you post here. Stop Jocking my Posts shill.

WeAreChangAtlanta

http://www.federaljack.com/?p=96679 JOINT BASE LEWIS MCCHORD, Wash. – A soldier’s widow says his fellow Army Rangers wouldn’t do anything to help him before he took his own life – after eight deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Read this Tuna. Another casualty for the BULLSHIT WAR ON TERROR. This is what you enable with your lies.

Tuna Ghost

If one enables something, then one shares the responsibility for that something. If you say I enabled every drop of blood spilt, then I am, at the very least, partly responsible. That follows from what the words “enable” and “responsibility” mean. Why are you even arguing this? The definition of those words lead to that conclusion. Check the dictionary, guy. Its ridiculous to claim otherwise.

My words stand on their own. They are not even technically my opinions. These are the opinions of the vast majority of the scientific community, as you well know. I could be a houseplant whose leaves happened to fall on a keyboard in a statistically improbable order and they would still accurately represent the opinions of the scientific community. Address the argument, not the person making it. Claiming I’m wrong because I’m a shill a perfect example of ad hominem. Look it up. If I call you an idiot, that is not an example of ad hominem. If I say you’re an idiot who is completely wrong and making fantasies, that is not an example of ad hominem either. If I say you’re wrong because you’re an idiot who makes fantasies, THAT would be an example of ad hominem. But I’ve never said that. It’s not because you’re an idiot that you’re wrong. You’re wrong because the claims you’ve made are not factual.

I have no idea what “jocking” means. I can only assume it means “commenting on my posts and pointing out the factual errors I’ve made.” If you don’t like people calling you out on your mistakes, the door is over there. There are plenty of places you can go where no one will bother you when you’re spreading bullshit around. Disinfo is not one of those places. I like Disinfo, and you and your ilk are bringing down the quality of debate around here. In an effort to demonstrate that this is not a place where bullshit isn’t challenged, I will continue to point out your mistakes. If you don’t like that, well, no one is putting a gun to your head and making you post here.

Although, if you leave, I won’t be able to join the “I have a stalker” club. Hmm. Dilemma.

WeAreChangeAtlanta

I’ve noticed a pattern. Whatever someone points out about your illogical processes and fallacious arguments, you immediately attempt to accuse them of your own ignorant ploys, wanting the high ground or onus to be on them rather than yourself. It’s a convenient means for an anonymous shill to attempt to avoid being called out and you employ it tirelessly.

Explain to me how a 47 story tall building (not hit by a plane) manages to dismember itself and 400 welded steel connections per second simultaneously and globally across the entire facade of the structure, from small asymmetrical fires as NIST would have us believe?

There is no scientific majority opposed to the Peer reviewed and forensic evidence available that you are invoking, provide a source for this illogical claim (Science is NOT majority rule after all, I’ve already explained this to you Tuna so this is why I have no qualms with labeling you a shill)

NIST states that “differential thermal expansion occurred between the steel floor beams and concrete slab when the composite floor was subjected to fire.” The composite floor is the steel beams made composite with the floor slab by means of the shear studs. They claim that the differential thermal expansion caused the steel to expand and move over the concrete until the shear studs broke. Even though NIST itself acknowledges, and I again quote from the official report, “steel and concrete have similar coefficients of thermal expansion.”

To prove their point, they fed their variables into their computer model to demonstrate how WTC 7 would have reacted to its fires. So, what did NIST feed into its computer that caused it to say that the steel would have expanded so much more than the concrete slab that the 2′-0″ o.c., 3/4″ shear studs began failing at ~300 F?
NIST said (ie admitted) that it told the computer that the steel beams had been heated; but the concrete floor slab had not. To again quote NIST, “No thermal expansion or material degradation was considered for the concrete slab, as the slab was not heated in this analysis.”

I am not arguing that the official report is false. Quite the contrary. I am in fact quoting it. But in the official story NIST admits, or at least states, that they fudged the data to support their story.

@Bethechangeatlanta I think 911 Truthers would benefit much more from the services of a therapist than the disinformation website. Science and logic, you don’t even comprehend what those words mean …

Tuna Ghost

Whatever someone points out about your illogical processes and fallacious arguments, you immediately attempt to accuse them of your own ignorant ploys, wanting the high ground or onus to be on them rather than yourself.

I’d ask for examples, but there’s no telling what you think that sentence even means. If your recent posts are any example, you really don’t have a solid grasp of semantics.

Where are you seeing the faults? Where does ANYONE see the faults? See, here’s what happens: people like you say “explain WTC7!” And then I provide an explanation, and then you ignore it. Then I ask about how the explosions didn’t make the noise that an explosion that powerful should have made, and you ignore that too. There’s an entire comments section of this very thing happening over and over. Until you answer that question, the discussion cannot move forward. But you don’t care about that, do you? No Truther on Disinfo, not a single one, has answered that question. Why didn’t people two blocks away hear it? Tell me, buddy. An explosion that powerful would have been heard ten blocks away. But it wasn’t. Why is that? Why has literally every single Truther on Disinfo avoided answering that question when I ask it? Why, friend? Why don’t you answer it?

Tuna Ghost

There is no scientific majority opposed to the Peer reviewed and forensic evidence available that you are invoking, provide a source for this illogical claim
I don’t understand this sentence. What “peer reviewed and forensic evidence” am I invoking?

There is a majority consensus on what occurred on 9/11. Pretending otherwise is ignoring reality. The Popular Mechanics article was an example. Why wasn’t it retracted? Why wasn’t there an uproar if it wasn’t scientifically soudn? Why weren’t there papers published in any scientific journal attempting to discredit it?

The only “peer reviewed” article given to the scientific community, the article Truthers like to claim that proves there was nano-thermite found in the debris of the towers (even though the article itself makes no such claims at all, making me wonder if they’ve actually read the damn thing) was discredited immediately and the editor resigned in disgrace for allowing it to be published in a scientific journal. To my knowledge, that was the only article presented to the scientific community, as opposed to the numerous videos released on YouTube for people like you. Why is that? Why aren’t there others? If Gage really has 800 engineers (the actual number is nothing close, of course), why haven’t more papers been submitted? Why haven’t they started their own investigation? Or are you going to say that the rest of the scientific community is part of the conspiracy?

WeAreChangeAtlanta

It’s already been answered countless times. You just pretend it hasn’t. Here is a nice little video for you, you can see Structural Engineers, Chemists, Metallurgists, Architects, Veterans, etc explain why we need an immediate, independent and new investigation for the unsolved crimes of 9/11. http://ae911truth.org/en/news-section/41-articles/546-remember-building-7-10th-anniversary-ad-campaign-launches-today-.html

“Then I ask about how the explosions didn’t make the noise that an explosion that powerful should have made, and you ignore that too.”

This is your best evidence? Really? And you expect anyone to take you seriously? No wonder you are so neurotically insecure that you feel the need to hurl insults on an online forum.

So you are saying there were no loud explosions associated with building 7 or the towers implosion? Ok here we go again, here watch this video, it’s just one example of the LOUD EXPLOSIONS documented on video and in eye witness reports.

But you just keep telling yourself that it doesn’t exist. By the way you’ve not explained anything, just like NIST. You are just presuming that these implosions have to match your illogical criteria or that they could not have been implosions. Just watch the video, it’s really not that difficult. For anyone watching at home, when you see Building 7 side by side collapsing at free fall velocities into the path of greatest resistance along side the acknowledged controlled demolition examples. Just remember Tuna would have you question your eyes rather than challenge the edicts of state. A child can see clearly what a rotting fish carcass cannot.

So you are saying there were no loud explosions associated with building 7 or the towers implosion?

No. Read carefully: Explosions from controlled demolitions can be heard from quite a long distance away. Had explosives been used, regardless of the kind of explosives and regardless of whether or not thermite was used, people ten blocks away would have heard them. They would have been recorded on any of the numerous surveillance equipment and other recording devices in operation around the Towers. But they weren’t. And nobody who wasn’t in the immediate vicinity of the Towers heard the loud booms. And if the people who did report hearing loud booms really were that close to an explosive device powerful enough to knock down a building, they would have been literally deafened by it. No matter how you try to spin it, powerful explosion = deafening noise.

This is what no Truthers address. A handful of people reporting loud booms is not evidence of explosions. Those noises were not captured on any of the recording devices present and operating at the time, despite the fact that explosions powerful enough to knock down a building can be heard a mile away. This is what you, and every single other Truther here, ignores. Give it a try, buddy. Explain that to me. Explain to me how an explosion didn’t make the sound an explosion should. Tell me how it didn’t deafen the people standing right next to the building. Tell me why no recording equipment captured the noise. Tell me why people two blocks away didn’t hear it. Do what literally no Truther has done so far. The discussion literally cannot move forward if you do not.

Tuna Ghost

Look guy, you can call me all the names you want, just answer the goddam question. The actual question I elaborated upon in my other post. When I say “literally no other Truther addressed this”, that is a factual statement. In the other comment section, with 200+ comments by Truthers, no one addressed this. You can see for yourself. It’s all there, literally in black and white.

Right on. I’ve had the idea that anybody that supports one of “our” wars should go fight it or work in a support role. Congress members would say they must run the gov. But the idea of taking ownership of what you support is ethically right the fuck on. A lot of right-wingers talk the big talk. They Love to talk. They love their talk radio and shit talkin’ and letting everybody know how patriotic they are. Cool, send them to Afghanistan.

Fred Lamb

Sure the military protects American citizens you all remember how they stood up for the students a at Kent State University when they were unarmed and exercising their right to free speech.

Fred Lamb

Sure the military protects American citizens you all remember how they stood up for the students a at Kent State University when they were unarmed and exercising their right to free speech.
The men in the military are there because they believe they are there to protect American freedoms and American lives….. They don’t know and are not told that in reality they are just trained, equipped, gangster-goons for Corporate America. Just like the police in the USA, they do just what they’re told by their superiors and go just as far as they’re allowed and encouraged to go in the protection of, or harassment of the present objective. The law and constitution be damned.